Morphological and molecular characterization of native Heliconia sp. accessions of the Amazon region

Abstract

Heliconias are tropical plants with ornamental potential. These plants are particularly used in the floriculture industry because of their exotic colors and shapes. Species characterization is important for the selection of genotypes for the ornamental plant market and subsequent application in studies of genetic improvement. The aim of this study was to estimate the genetic divergence of Heliconia densiflora and Heliconia psittacorum accessions based on quantitative morphological and molecular markers. The morphological and molecular descriptors revealed genetic variability among the accessions evaluated. The greatest genetic variability was observed among H. psittacorum accessions, whose sample number was also larger compared to H. densiflora. Morphological characterization was efficient in differentiating the two Heliconia species, especially to characteristics such as bract and inflorescence length, postharvest durability, and flower stem diameter, which contributed most to the divergence in this study. On the other hand, molecular characterization identified one H. densiflora individual that was grouped with the H. psittacorum genotypes. The results showed that ISSR markers can differentiate closely related H. densiflora and H. psittacorum individuals. The materials evaluated can contribute to the maintenance of local genetic diversity through the germplasm bank of the local breeding program of ornamental tropical plants.

Review of recent advances in post-harvest techniques for tropical cut flowers and future prospects: Heliconia as a case-study

“…(Kress, 1984;Criley and Broschat, 1992;Criley and Paull, 1993;Castro et al, 2007;Rodrıǵuez, 2013;Costa et al, 2015;Loges et al, 2016;Souza et al, 2016). These inflorescences are popularly used as cut flowers, unlike its true flowers, which are inconspicuous in nature, usually white, yellow or orange in color, numbering from 2 to 20 and remaining enveloped by bracts (Criley and Paull, 1993, Criley and Broschat, 1992, Krause et al, 2023. The importance of Heliconia as a cut flower lies in the bright hues, sturdiness, and freshness of its inflorescences.…”

“…Taking into consideration the great potential and burgeoning demand as a cut flower, our review will focus on Heliconia(>250 inter and intra-specific varieties are existing), commonly known as 'False Bird-of-Paradise', which belongs to the family Heliconiaceae (Abalo and Morales, 1982;Kress, 1990;Berry and Kress, 1991;Criley and Broschat, 1992;Abadie and Berreta, 2001;Urooj-UI-Nissa et al, 2015;Malakar et al, 2016;Avendaño-Arrazate et al, 2017;Krause et al, 2023). This review will specifically focus on the pre-and post-harvest factors that affect the desired attributes of heliconia cut flowers as expected by consumers.…”