Intra-specific variations in Silene: Morphometry and micromorphometry analyses

The Silene species are annual, biennial or perennial herbs mainly distributed in the northern hemisphere, Europe, Asia and northern Africa. The section, Inflatae Boiss., is the smallest section of the genus containing three species and four subspecies in Iran, out of which one subspecies is endemic with very restricted distribution in the western and northern regions. Studies on seed morphology with scanning electron microscope (SEM) have revealed taxonomically useful micro-characters. The present study was performed to study morphological and micromorphological features in seven Silene species and subspecies in the sect Auriculatae and Inflatae growing in Iran, to study their intraspecific variations and to find out if such data can be used in taxonomy of the genus. The grouping obtained by unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) dendrogram separated the species of the section Inflatae from the species of the section Auriculatae. Siahbishe population of Silene vulgaris differed in morphological characters and was placed some distance from the other studied populations. It also had the highest values of total haploid chromosome length (50.51 μM), size of the longest chromosome, (5.42 μM), size of the shortest chromosome (2.88 μM) and the mean chromosome length (4.21 μM). Therefore morphological differences of this population may be related to its higher total chromosome length (genome size), compared to those of other populations studied. We also suggested that the Siahbishe population to be considered as a new variety of S. vulgaris, based on both morphological and cytological grounds. The seed type in both section are symmetrical reniform, asymmetric reniform and rounded-reniform. In the sect. Auriculate, the length of seed ranged from 1.22 to 2.23 mm, while the size of seed width ranged from 0.86 to 1.38 mm. In the sect. Inflatae, the length of seed ranged from 1.30 to 1.86 mm and the seed width ranged from 0.80 to 1.42 mm. These two sections differed in some other seed characteristics which are discussed.Keywords: Morphometry, taxonomy, seed characteristics, Silene.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(33), pp. 5208-521