Diversity of morphological characteristics and propagation by bulb chipping in rain lily Zephyranthes sp. in Vietnam

Abstract: Vietnam is one of the countries with high biodiversity, with extremely rich and diverse genetic resources of flowers and ornamental plants, which are precious and valuable in the domestic and international markets. Currently, in Vietnam, rain lilies have many different shapes and colors. This study focused on evaluating the growth characteristics of ten different varieties of rain lily and the ability to propagate these varieties by bulb chipping method in winter-spring in Hanoi, Vietnam. The results show that there was a great diversity in growth characteristics among lily varieties in terms of the number of leaves (4.4 to 12.7), leaf length (8.3-22 cm), leaf width (2.4-9.7 mm), leaf thickness (1.0 to 1.7 mm), leaf angle (23-50^o), and tillering ability in six months (0 to 5.8 branches/bulb). The flower colors were also diverse such as white, light pink, dark pink, orange, white. The number of petals was 6 or 12 petals, along with the diversity of flower structure. The ten varieties showed a different propagation capacity by bulb chipping ranging from 1 to 17 multiplication times. The bulbils derived from bulb chipping had the good quality, with the highest number of bulbils in the treatment of the four-piece-chipping. Therefore, the method can be applied to rain lily propagation in Vietnam.