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Abstract:Comparative karyological studies for 23 taxa of the Solanaceae have been presented and their taxonomic aspects are discussed. It was concluded that the origin of the family is a taxon with basic chronomosome number of x = 7 or 8 which gave rise to other taxa by aneuplodiy and polyploidy. Nictiana elate and Browallia viscose are found to be less evolved than the other species studied. Concerning the total form percentage (TF%) a reverse trend towards increasing the degree of karyotype symmetry with advancing evolution is concluded.

Floristic composition and soil characters in representative habitats of the southern Nile Delta region in Qalyubia were analyzed in terms of habitat variations and species diversity. A total of 90 sites were surveyed and nineteen environmental factors were recognized in four main habitats : canal banks, cultivated lands, waste lands and sandy plains. Basic statistical treatments were established by using SPSS v. 10.0. The produced data were subjected to cluster analysis by using MVSP v. 3.1 ; indirect and direct ordination methods i. e. Detrended and Canonical Correspondence analyses, respectively by using CANOCO v. 4.5. A total of 164 species representing c. 7.7% of the Egyptian plant species were recorded and their life-form spectrum was identified. The majority of species were belonging to the families : Gramineae, Compositae, Leguminosae and Cruciferae. The floristic similarity between the recognized habitats showed a significant positive correlation between the canal banks and cultivated lands. Cynanchum acutum subsp. acutum, Cynodon dactylon, Phragmites australis and Pluchea dioscoridis were of high ecological amplitude. Three main vegetation groups (i. e. weeds, halo/ helophytes and xerophytes) were recorded, and their controlling ecological factors were identified. Ordination analysis reveled that, the three groups were well segregated along the DCA axis 1, and were highly related to calcium carbonates, fertility and species diversity gradients in addition to the gradient of human interference. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) produced a similar pattern to that of the floristic Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) and revealed that, the weed plants (i. e. vegetation group A) were highly associated with organic matter, phosphorus, potassium, saturation percentage, potassium cations and pH ; the Halo/ Helophytic plants (group B) with bicarbonates, sulphates, calcium, magnesium and sodium ; the xerophetic plants (group C) with CaCO 3 and pH.

Four Egyptian and 21 foreign new lines of kabuli chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) were analyzed by using biochemical molecular markers to gain insight into the genetic diversity between accessions. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) was applied on the total soluble seed proteins by using sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and five isozyme systems to examine the storage and functional components, respectively. The storage protein markers alone were not enough to discriminate polymorphism among accessions of the different geographical origins. Isozyme data revealed 18 alleles belonging to 11 loci in the 5 systems. Unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) revealed that, the examined Egyptian accessions could strongly be originated from an ancestor that possessed little intraspecific diversity or lost, during domestication, much of its variation.

The present work was carried out to study some features of the family Papilonoideae. These features include seed protein profiles and morphology. These were used to reassess some taxonomic relationships between some closely related taxa of the Papilionoideae; identifying the similarities and dissimilarities between them based on the SDS-PAGE of seed protein characters; determination of the interrelationships and affinities between them based on current systems of classification by using numerical methods. Seed protein profiles produced by gel electrophoresis and the molecular mass in kilo-Dalton of their polypeptide subunits and the morphological features were recorded in 36 species belonging to 11 genera of the Papilionoideae (family: Fabaceae). Phenetic relationships of these species were established based on UPGMA-clustering applied to the produced 97 seed protein characters in combination with 173 morphological characters by using different modules of the NTSYS-pc 2.2 program package. The produced data were compared by measuring each of the tree distortion; from its relevant data matrix; and association to each other based on their cophenetic (ultrametric) correlation coefficients. The present data were useful in revealing new distinguishing characters, identifying the similarities/ differences and confirming the taxonomic interrelationships between the studied taxa based on current systems of classification.