Swertia chirayita, a medicinal plant in India, is economically important due
to its bitterness, antihelminthic, hypoglycemic, hepatoprotective, and
antiviral properties. There have been few studies about tissue culture of S.
chirayita and still no studies regarding in vitro flowering. An in vitro
flowering system, if developed in S. chirayita, may be able to overcome
problems associated with in vitro flower growth and development as well as
open the idea for in vitro fruit and seed production.

Axillary bud explants were used to study in vitro flowering and effective
micropropagation protocols for Swertia chirayita. The Murashige and Skoog's
medium (MS) supplemented with benzyl amino purine (BAP) 1.0 and adenine
sulfate 70.0 was found optimum for production of multiple shoots. Incubation
of flowering cultures on BAP-supplemented medium was found necessary for
flowering. In vitro flowering was found to be influenced by subculture
duration, photoperiod and carbon source. Mature flowers were observed when
the cultures were maintained in the same medium.

In vitro flowering could potentially become an important tool in tissue
culture due to its ability to shorten the life cycles of plants. This
technique can also serve in mass productions of specific organs with unique
compounds for pharmaceutical and other uses.

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