Morphological characterization, propagation and identification of Boucerosia frerei (G.D.Rowley) Meve & Liede accessions for its introduction in hanging basket: an attractive succulent with star-shaped flowers from the Northern Western Ghats of India

Boucerosia frerei (G.D. Rowley) Meve & Liede (formerly Frerea indica ; family-Apocynaceae) is one of the little known, endemic and critically endangered succulent herbs with pretty flowers distributed sparsely in the Northern Western Ghats of India. In its natural habitat, the plant shows phenotypic variation in numerous qualitative and quantitative characters of stem, leaves and flowers. The present investigation describes the first report of collection, phenotypic characterization, commercially viable propagation strategy development and identification of accessions of B. frerei suitable for use in hanging baskets. The results highlight the important and interesting features of this plant. A total of 32 morphological traits (9 qualitative and 23 quantitative) were recorded for five accessions collected from Kate’s Point, Mahabaleshwar (KP), Meruling, Satara (MS), Sajjangad, Satara (SS), Purandar, Pune (PP) and YCIS, Satara (YC) and evaluated using ANOVA, PCA and cluster analysis. Ten morphological traits viz. plant height, stem color, number of nodes, number of roots, number of leaves, number of flowers, size, shape, architecture and seed weight contributed to the variation between the accessions. For succulents to be used in hanging baskets, plant height, number of leaves and floral attributes are among the most important selection traits. Morphological characterization identified the Meruling, Satara (MS) as the potential accession for hanging baskets. A combination of soil, coconut coir and vermiculite (3:1:1) escalated the phenotypic traits in the aerial parts in hanging basket cultivation. Among the propagation techniques employed, vegetative propagation proved superior over tissue-culture technique for large-scale propagation for its conservation and supply of stock material to horticulture industry.