Distribution and In Vitro Propagation of selected species of Araceae

Araceae is a moderately large monocot family consisting of about 3300 species. Members of this family have many special morphological characters, occupy different kinds of habitats, geographical areas and mostly well known for their food and medicinal importance especially among the indigenous people of Temiar community in Lojing Highlands, Kelantan. First objective of this research is to detennine the distribution of Araceae in Lojing Highlands, Kelantan and Sungai Gadong, Tasik Temenggor, Perak and secondly, was to select an appropriate sterilization protocols to initiate in vitro propagation of Schismatoglottis calyptrata and Colocasia esculenta by using different concentration and exposure time of Clorox®, and Ethanol (Cl-I;CH;OH), as steiilizing agent and, incorporation of Antifungal (Agrozeb®) and 6- Benzylaminopunne (BAP) in Murashige and Skoog, 1962 media, The results for distribution of Araceae, a total of 11 genus of Araceae were found in Lojing Highlands and Sungai Gadong through method of random sampling. For the initiation of in vitro propagation, explants treated with 100 % of Clorox® and sterilized with 95% of Ethanol for 10 seconds and method of dipping explant in 95 % of Ethanol and flaming the explant with Bunsen bumer shows in vitro growth of bud of explant. However, contamination of explants cannot be fully eliminated because the contaminants remain mostly within the plant tissue thus it is critical to successfully grow viable in vitro plantlets.