Survival and Initial Growth of Schumannianthus dichotoma (Marantaceae) from four Different Propagating Materials

Schumannianthus dichotoma is an economically important non-timber forest species which occurs naturally or in plantations in low lying areas of Bangladesh. Survival and growth of four propagating materials namely, rhizomes, branch cuttings, ischolar_mained cuttings and seedlings were observed for S. dichotoma. Performance of rhizome, the conventiollal means of raising plantations, appears to be the best when assessment was made one and half years after initiation of the experiment. Survival was 82.67% and number of shoots per clump was 31.67. Height and diameter of the tallest shoots were 180.53 cm and 17.31 mm respectively from the rhizomes. Further studies, need to be conducted to ascertain the practicality and feasibility of other propagating material which are less expensive.