This study was conducted to fi
nd out an effective concentration of colchicine for inducing polyploidy in Impatiens
patula Craib. The colchicine concentrations used in the experiment were 0, 0.03, 0.05
and 0.09% with the incubation period of three hours. All colchicine treated shoot tips
were cultured on MS medium without growth regulator for six weeks. It was found that
increasing doses of colchicine resulted in decreasing of the average shoot length, the
number of node, leaf and flower and also the percentage of in vitro flowering. However,
colchicine concentrations used in this experiment had no effect on the size of flower. Colchicine
concentration at 0.05% led to tetraploid induction and provided the highest average thickness
of leaf (309 μm) and largest size of stomata (68.8 μm).
The tetraploid plantlets gave the higher chloroplast
number than those of diploid plantlets.