Micropropagation of Anemopaegma arvense: conservation of an endangered medicinal plant.

Anemopaegma arvense (Vell.) Stellfeld ex de Souza is a medicinal species also known as Catuaba. All commercially available formulations of Catuaba have been produced from wild crafting, the gathering of plant biomass from its native habitat. Nodal segments were used as explants and 4.8 new buds per explant were induced on MS media supplemented with 4.4 microM of kinetin in 30 days. The percentage of in vitro rooting was low, although acclimatization of unrooted plants into soil was successfully achieved. For germplasm maintenance, cultures of A. arvense were stored on 4 % (w/v) sorbitol and maintained viable at low growth rate without subcultures for six months.