Morphological Characterization of Allium spp. Using Multivariate Analysis

Abstract

Thirty-five accessions of Allium species were characterized for foliage colour, density of leaves, foliage attitude, cross-section of leaf, degree of leaf waxiness, storage organ, bulb skin colour, shape of mature dry bulbs, ability to flower, seed coat colour, leaf length, leaf girth, number of leaves/plant and plant height. High level of variability was observed for bulb colour and shape of mature dry bulbs as they were distributed into maximum of six classes and least variability was observed for ability to flower. The significant differences were observed for all the measureable characters. In principal component analysis, first five components explained 74.53% of the total variation, where first component explained 22.92% and second accounted for 16.66% of total variation. In, PC-1 storage organ has highest positive contribution and shape of mature dry bulbs in PC-2. The different Allium species show extensive overlapping in PCA plot draw based on the morphological characters.