HighlightsCrocus is a medicinally important plant and it is costliest spice of the world.An efficient microprapogation protocol of five Turkish Crocus species was developed.Crocus species: C. specious ssp. Specious, C. oliveri spp. Oliveri, C. pestalozzae, C. abantensis, and C. paschei..Different combinations and concentrations of auxins and cytokinins were used.Plant regeneration was developed via somatic embryogenesis.

Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) was utilized to study disomic wheat (Triticum aestivum)/Dasypyrum villosum chromosome addition lines to characterize the V genome chromosomes of D. villosum L. Candargy. The V genome specific DNA sequence, pHv62; the rye sequence, pSc119.2, the 18S‐5.8S‐26S rDNA genes, pTa71, and the 5S rDNA sequence, cP5S, were used as probes. Six of the seven added D. villosum chromosomes hybridized with pHv62. One of these, 3V, was shown to be a Robertsonian translocation with a wheat chromosome. The presence of the seventh addition line chromosome was verified by FISH using total genomic D. villosum DNA as probe. FISH with cP5S detected a site on 5V, whilst pTa71 revealed a single site on the short arm of IV, but pSc119.2 detected sites on all the chromosomes of D. villosum. The pHv62 probe was also used in the application of FISH to a number of other species in the Triticeae, including five species of Aegilops, barley and the tetraploid Dasypyrum breviaristatum. Sites were detected only in Thinopyrum bessarabicum and Secale cereale, and this together with the above evidence for pTa71 and pSc119.2 suggests that D. villosum is phylogenetically closest to Th. bessarabicum and S. cereale, and also is not related to Dasypyrum breviaristatum.

Chromosome numbers and morphometric parameters of five Crocus L. taxa were examined. Except C. specious Bieb. subsp. specious, and C. olivieri Gay subsp. olivieri, the other 3 taxa, C. abantensis T. Baytop et Mathew, C. ancyrensis (Herbert) Maw, and C. biflorus Miller subsp. pulchricolor (Herbert) Mathew all are endemic for Turkey. The chromosome numbers of C. abantensis 2n = 8 chromosomes, six of them metacentric and two were submetacentric, C. ancyrensis and C. olivieri subsp. olivieri both had 2n = 6 chromosomes and all the chromosomes were subtelocentric, finally C. specious subsp. specious and C. biflorus subsp. pulchricolor both had 2n = 8 chromosomes and all were submetacentric. Although some of the taxa chromosome numbers were known from previous studies, in this study some different counts were and their detailed karyotypes were presented.

No abstract