Study of Seed Maturity on Germination ans Subsequent Growth of Orange Jasmine (Murraya paniculata L.)

Murraya panieu/ata L., commonly called Orange Jasmine is a tropical, evergreen plant bearing small, white, fragrant scented flowers, which is grown as an ornamental tree or hedge. It can be grown in rich, moist, welldrained loams in full sun to part shade. Murraya is closely related to Citrus in the Rutaceae family. In this study, two experiments were carried out. In Experiment 1, a total of 240 seeds of M. paniculata were sown. Eighty seeds were soaked in no treatment solution as control (Tl), hot water priming for 3 minutes (T2), and Gibberellic acid for 24 hours (13) respectively. For Experiment 2, about thirty healthy seedlings of M. panieu/ata were taken of almost equal size from Experiment 1 in each maturity stages. They were potted in a 10 cm x 12 cm plastic pot containing 1: 1 top soil and coconut peat. Readings of plant growth were taken in terms of height, diameter and number of leaves within 5 months. Results in Experiment I indicated that M2 and M3 were the best maturity stages for M. panieu/ata, where they attained 81.25% and 79.6% of seed germination respectively. The best treatment was from T2 and attained 81.25% of seed germination. In Experiment 2, all the types of maturity stages showed positive growth in terms of height, diameter and number ofleaves for M. panieu/ata