Air-dried seeds of
Echinacea purpurea were used to study the seed germination, seedling formation, survival germination and
flower characters after implantation of
7Li ion beams and irradiation of 60Co γ-rays with different doses. Initial results showed that the damage effect of 7Li ion beams was lighter than that of γ-rays. Although both 7Li ion beams and γ-rays could stimulate the seed germination within a certain range of doses, the seedling formation and survival germination responded differently to these two mutagens. The seedling formation was obviously promoted by 7Li ion beam treatment at the dose of 109 ions/cm2. With the increase of the dose of 7Li ion beams, the growth and development of euphylla progressed slower and the survival germination decreased obviously. The formation of seedlings from irradiated seeds by γ-rays was inhibited significantly. The higher the dose of γ-rays was, the lower the survival germination would be. When the dose of γ-rays was higher than 150 Gy, the euphylla of seedlings failed to come out and no germination survived. Among the plants in M 1 generation of 7Li ion beam treatments, variations in flowering date, flower diameter, flower color, petal shape or petal number were selected. The variations occurred mainly in the 7Li ion beam treatments at doses of 10 11 ions/cm2 and 10 12 ions/cm2. The total frequency of variation was between 1.67% and 6.67%.