Morphological characterization of intra-and interspecific diversity in some Iranian wild Allium species

Genetic Diversity and Taxonomic Studies of Allium Akaka and A. Elburzense Native to Iran Using Morphological Characters

“…In agro-ecological conditions of field experiment, time of flowering was from late April to early June, and within this period was classified as early (A1, A2, A3, A4, A10 and A11), mediate (A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, E1 and E2) and late (E3 and E4). According to Fritsch and Abbasi (2013), the flowering time depends on environment conditions, such as temperature and precipitation at flowering (Aryakia et al 2016). Morphological diversity of this trait, which was observed at intra-and interspecific levels, is also used in the evaluation of taxonomic positioning of different plants, which was important in evolutionary process responsible for reproductive diversification (Friedman & Harder 2005 (Table 3).…”

“…No strong fragrance was observed among these 15 accessions of two Allium species. In previous studies (Nogueira et al 2001;Jurgens 2004;Aryakia et al 2016), inflorescence fragrance was used for taxonomic arrangement or pollination biology. Flower colors in A. akaka were white (37.4%) and pink (62.6%) in A1, white (17%) and pink (83%) in A2 and pink in other accessions of the species.…”

“…According to Fritsch and Maroofi (2010), Allium is represented in Iran by 121 species. Thereafter several new species and subspecies from Allium were described and newly recorded for the Iranian territory (Razyfard et al 2011;Fritsch & Abbasi 2013;Fritsch & Amini Rad 2013, Akhavan et al 2015Aryakia et al 2016). Allium subg.…”

“…The study of genetic diversity for both germplasm management and breeding has received much attention. Collection, conservation and subsequent characterization and assessment of Allium germplasm could produce beneficial knowledge about the extent and pattern of genetic diversity, developing an important database for the support of several objectives, such as agricultural management, phylogenetic and taxonomic classification, evolutionary and ecological studies or breeding programs (Aryakia et al 2016). Morphological descriptors are widely used in germplasm groups and remain the only legitimate marker type accepted by the international union for the protection of new cultivars of plants (UPOV).…”

“…For characterization and evaluating morphological diversity of Alliums, it is important to use descriptors with high heritability and stability. Given the constraints of descriptors and according to the required performance (Podgornik et al 2010), it might be necessary to use discriminative descriptors (Aryakia et al 2016).…”