Abstract:Culture of zygotic embryos is an effective way to accelerate the breeding process of herbaceous peony. With the zygotic embryos of three herbaceous peony(Paeonia lactiflora Pall.) cultivars(‘Fen Yu Nu’, ‘Zhu Sha Pan’ and ‘Tuan Ye Hong’), we studied the affection of different embryo age, explant types, sterilization methods and starting medium formula on root initiation in vitro. The suitable development period were 50 and 70 d after flowering for embryo-culture of ‘Zhu Sha Pan’ and ‘Tuan Ye Hong’, respectively. We got better results when using excised zygotic embryos rather than keeping part of endosperm reserved. The optimal disinfection method for explant was that firstly treating carpel for 30-60 s with 70% alcohol, then for 20 min with 2% NaClO, and finally for 10 min with 2% NaClO. The optimal initial medium was 1/2MS+1.0 mg·L-1 IAA+0.5 mg·L-1 GA3.