EN
A cuticle visualized by auramine O fluorescence on the surface of developing triticale (xTriticosecale Wittm.) embryos was investigated. The localization of the cuticle was studied on zygotic and somatic embryos derived from androgenic culture. In triticale zygotic embryogenesis, a fluorescing cuticle layer appears on the globular embryo and persists during successive stages of development. The cuticle is especially thick on the tip of the coleoptile, the epiblast, the hypoblast and shoot apex surfaces adjacent to the endosperm. During maturation of the embryos there is no fluorescing cuticular layer on the scutellum surface. The fluorescing cuticle covers the whole surface of the mature embryos. In a similar way, the fluorescing cuticle invests whole globular and older somatic triticale embryos, while its layer is not always continuous at later stages. The cuticle persists also on the surface of plantlets growing from somatic embryos. In this paper the influence of the cuticle on embryo polarization, nutrition and morphogenesis is discussed.