Polygonatum biflorum is an understory herbaceous perennial which inhabits many of the forest understories of east and midwestern portions of the United States. It is slow growing plant that takes several years to go from seed to maturity. It is very susceptible to habitat destruction and once removed it is hard for it to reestablish itself. The goal of this research is to use tissue culture to determine a protocol for generating plants in vitro and introducing them back into their natural habitat.

There are four different aspects to this project dormancy breaking, shoot multiplication, callus induction, and reintroduction. Dormancy breaking required a mix of cold stratification and gibberellic acid (GA) to induce germination. A method to produces axenic plants from seeds was established.

Shoot multiplication used a combination of cytokinin BA and auxin NAA in 1/2MS media to induce shoot multiplication from small explants. Callus induction used a mixture of cytokinin BA and auxin 2,4D to induce the production of callus, a cluster of undifferentiated cells. The reintroduction used plantlets that were propagated in vitro and planted them in the Gardens at SIUE.