Abstract

Imperial Crown (Fritillaria imperialis) is a Perennial plant has a high medicinal and ornamental value and importance. The crude drug comprising ‘‘Fritillarae bulbs’’ has been long used as a principal Chinese medicine, possess blood platelet aggregation inhibitory activity and used for the treatment of various ailments such as sore throat, cough, asthma, bronchitis, scrofula, gland tumor, dysuria and haemoptysis in folklore. Beside its anti-tussive, expectorant and anti-hypertensive attributes, it attracts many tourists from all over the word to see the Crown Imperial in the wild [1]. In Iran, wild populations of F. imperialis are at risk of rapid eradication, because of irregular grazing of Fritillaria stands, lack of protecting rules, changing the pastures to dry farmlands, and pest overflow. Therefore, the preservation, protection and regeneration of this valuable plant are quite important [2]. Naturally, Imperial Crown regenerates from bulbs. Another option is the seed. Because of high numbers of offspring, small size and so fine dispersal to colonization of new areas and having good potential to withstand a much wider range of environmental constrains versus bulbs, so they are a fine tool to multiplication of Imperial Crown [3]. The seeds of Fritillaria are dormant, this however has evolutionary, and survival benefits for the plant but restrict its germination. Therefore, we decided to break the dormancy and introduce the seeds as a new regeneration tool. Then this study was aimed to evaluate different methods of seeds dormancy break of Imperial Crown collected from Dashte-Lale in Zagros Mountain in Iran. Different dormancy break treatments and methods like mechanical and chemical scarification, leaching, hot water, cold and warm stratification, freezing and KNO3 were performed at different levels for seeds. Just freezing -20°C improved seed germination by only 5% but cold stratification of seeds for 10 weeks in 4°C resulted to complete germination. Dormancy released seed of Imperial Crown may used to regeneration of this valuable plant for medicinal or ornamental purposes.