THE JOURNAL OF TROPICAL LIFE SCIENCE OPEN ACCESS Freely available online VOL. 7, NO. 1, pp. 53 – 60, January 2017 Submited August 2016; Revised October 2016; Accepted January 2017 Pollen Viability of Aeschynanthus tricolor Hook. Vitri Garvita Gandadikusumah*, Hary Wawangningrum, Sri Rahayu Center for Plant Conservation, Bogor Botanic Gardens, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Bogor, Indonesia ABSTRACT Aeschynanthus (Gesneriaceae) is climbing or trailing epiphytes from the tropical forests of South-East Asia. Several species are widely cultivated for their atractive flowers, which usually scarlet with long corolla tubes and probably bird pollinated.This study was carried out on Aeschynanthus tricolor Hook. to determine in vitro ger- minability of (1) pollen collected from flowers at anthesis, on the day before anthesis, or up to fve days after an - thesis and (2) pollen collected on the day of anthesis and then stored at -20 o C for 127 days. Germinability tests were carried out on pollen grains after stored for four hours in 10% sucrose solution. The highest in vitro germin- ation percentage observed was pollen collected on the day of anthesis (96.3%) and the lowest was pollen collected on the ffth day after anthesis (5.6%). The germination percentage of pollen after stored at -20 o C was 98% at be- ginning and 22% after 127 days. From this research we can conclude that pollen of A. tricolor can be successfully collected and then stored for some time, will be practical beneft for plant breeding and conservation purposes. Keywords: Aeschynanthus tricolor, pollen germinability, storage, in vitro, sucrose Aeschynanthus, an epiphytic genus with 160 species, is widely spread in Southern China and South- east Asia to New Guinea and The Solomon Islands[1]. Aeschynanthus is includedin Gesneriaceae and subfam- ily Didymocarpoideae. In1823, Jack described Aeschy- nanthus volubilis Jack and Aeschynanthus radicans Jack for the frst time, which are both from Sumatra [2]. The frst specimens of Aeschynanthus tricolor Hook. were founded in Borneo [3]. The common name for species of the genus is “lipstick plant”, which comes from the appearance of the developing buds. A. tricolor Hook. is known as the special lipstick flower. Diferent to others, A. tricolor has campanulate calyx and short corolla tube, with dark red coloration. The special striped coloration is formed along the outer side of corolla tube; a characteristic which is retained in its hybrid crosses[3]. Aeschynanthus tricolor is perennial woody sub- shrub, epiphytic but sometimes lithophytic in the wild. The stems are branching. The leaves are opposite, usu- ally thick and leathery, bright to dark green adaxial and much paler sometimes purple-flushed abaxial. In- floresences arise from leaf axes towards or at tips of branches. A. tricolor flowers are strongly protandrous, which means that male (androecium) and female (gy- noecium) organs mature separately. The male organ matured when the flower is anthesis, and the female organ matured fve days after the male organ matured [3]. The development of flowers take 32 days from the beginning of a flower bud until anthesis. The habit varies from stif and twiggy to pendent and trailing, or creeping and rooting at the nodes [3, 4]. If we wish to use this strongly protandrous flower as a potential male parent in the development of hy- brids, knowledge of pollen viability will be useful for breeding purposes and for conservation as well. The problems for breeding arise when two species or vari- eties intended for hybridization were not bloom at the same time. In such cases, pollen from the potential male parent will need to be stored until the time when gynoecium of potential female parent is receptive. We therefore want to understand, the best time to harvest pollen for storage, and how long will pollen remain vi- JTLS | J. Trop. Life. Science 53 Volume 7 | Number 1 | January| 2017 INTRODUCTION *Corresponding author: Vitri Garvita Gandadikusumah Center for Plant Conservation, Bogor Botanic Gardens, Indonesian Institute of Sciences Jalan Ir. H. Juanda No. 13, Bogor 16003, Indonesia E-mail: gandadikusumahvitri692@gmail.com doi: 10.11594/jtls.07.01.09 How to cite: Gandadikusumah VG, Wawangningrum H, Rahayu S (2017) Pollen Viability of Aeschynanthus tricolor Hook. J. Trop. Life. Science 7 (1): 53 – 60.