Germination bi­ology of Parthenocissus quinquefolia (L.) Planch. (Vi­taceae)

We tested germination of seeds of Partheno-cissus quin­quefolia (L.) Planch. (Vitaceae) in laboratory in response to dif­ferent ecological factors: light intensity, temperature, humidity, acidity and salinity. Our results show that the most critical ecolog­ical factor is humidity. The highest rank of germination was 73 % in condition of sufficient moisture, 37 % in condition of excessive moisture and only 3 % in condition with insufficient moisture. Among variants with different reaction of medium the most suc­cessful germination was at pH 7 (73 %) and pH 9 (44 %). Anoth­er significant factor for seedlings germination of P. quinquefolia is lighting, since at full-dark, dark and semi-dark conditions the lev­el of germination was 0 %, 2 % and 24 % respectively. The per­centage of P. quinquefolia germination decreases with increasing salinity level. The most optimal germination regime was at +25 °C. Further study of P. quinquefolia biology will allow to clari­fy the difference in naturalization level between this species and closely related P. vitacea as well as to estimate the possibility of transformation of the introduced species into invasive.

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