Wentao Sheng¹ , Yongping Tang²

1 Department of Biotechnology, Nanchang Normal University, Nanchang, 330032;
2 Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Jiangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanchang, 330200
Author    Correspondence author
Molecular Plant Breeding, 2019, Vol. 10, No. 18   doi: 10.5376/mpb.2019.10.0018
Received: 18 Nov., 2019    Accepted: 18 Dec., 2019    Published: 25 Dec., 2019

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Sheng W.T., and Tang Y.P., 2019, Observation on morphological characteristics of flower development in mixed male and female hybrid cultivar 'Atlas' of Asparagus officinalis L., 10(18): 142-99 (doi: 10.5376/mpb.2019.10.0018)

 In order to make clear the relationship between sex determination and differentiation and the length of flower bud in Asparagus officinalis L., the five year old variety "Atlas" was used as the experimental material. The microscopic morphology of the female and male buds was observed by the common paraffin wax section and the safranine and fast green double staining techniques during the bud development. The results showed that the formation of dioecy experienced the primary stage of hermaphroditic stage firstly, then the development of the female or male organ seperately, and there was no obvious morphological difference between the male and female buds during the hermaphroditic period. Then, the pistil in the female plant developed normally, which formed a sound ovary and stigma, and the stamen stopped developing and it was highly inhibited. The stamens of male plants continued to form perfect filaments and anthers, but the development of pistils was blocked, and the styles were incomplete. Further validation demonstrated that the bud length of 1.2 mm should be the key period for the transition from hermaphroditism to dioecy, which might provide a reference for the study of sex determination and differentiation period in Asparagus officinalis L..

Asparagus officinalis L.; Flower bud, Morphology; Sex determination and differentiation