Plato lamented nearly 2500 years ago that land degradation in the city of Athens had stripped it off the lush hills of Greece. Among the key forms of degradation are deforestation, drought, siltation of rivers, destruction of water catchment areas, soil erosion, poaching and pollution due to industrialization. This destruction has been going on unabated despite awareness creation through education and also legislations. The greed of humanity for exploitation of the environment for profits has exposed the soft underbelly of human civilization giving rise to phenomena like global warming, floods, drought and now diseases associated with environmental degradation are a threat to the survival of mankind.

Eranthis longistipitata Regel (Ranunculaceae) is an endemic plant of Central Asia and one of the most popular among decorative bulbs. There is a need for the development of fast and controlled propagation methods of this species. The purpose of this study is to identify the features of in vitro culture of E. longistipitata seeds and embryos. The effect of various pretreatment methods on germination of E. longistipitata seeds in in vitro culture was studied – cold stratification, treatment with gibberellic acid (GA3) and a combination of cold stratification and embryo culture treatment. It is shown that mature seeds of E. longistipitata exhibit an underdeveloped embryo, and for complete maturation of embryos in in vitro culture, it is necessary to incubate the seeds at +4°C in the dark for 2 months, and then at +7°C under a 16/8 photoperiod regime for 2 months. The optimal method of seed pretreatment is a combination of cold stratification and embryo culture, when the number of viable explants attained 23%. GA3 seed treatment did not foster embryo development and seed germination of E. longistipitata. The study has shown that a combination of cold stratification and embryo culture methods is necessary to overcome the dormancy of E. longistipitata seeds in vitro.