Karyological Studies on Some Taxa of the Genus Vicia L. (Fabaceae).

Abstract

Summary Karyological studies on 16 species of Vicia L., including 10 species from the Egyptian flora are presented. Chromosome counts are observed for two species for the first time (2n=10 in V cinerea and V nigra). A diploid number of 2n=10 (x=5) has been found in 4 species, 2n=12 (x=6) in 2 species and 2n=14 (x=7) was recorded in 10 species V hirsuta was found to have 2 B-chromosomes. The karyotype in the examined species is more or less symmetric. However, considerable variations exist in chromosome size among the species studied. The results of the present study confirm that x=7 may be considered the basic number in the genus.The genus Vicia L. is one of the largest genera in the family Leguminosae (Fabaceae) , which belong to the subfamily Papilionoideae (Faboideae) of tribe Vicieae, which comprise 5 genera. More than 140 species belong to this genus (Mabberley 1987). They are categorized into 4 sections: Cracca, Ervum, Euvicia (Vicia) and Faba (Yamamoto 1973). These 4 sections differ in their morphological and evolutionary status. Chooi (1971) noticed that Ervum is the most primitive section, then Cracca, while Vicia and Faba are the most advanced ones . Vicia species, mostly annual and perennial, occur most frequently in grassy, hedge row and wood-land habitats, often in maritime and montane regions, on calcareous and slightly acid soils . They have many horticultural uses. The field bean, V faba and V sativa are both used as green manure, being effective in nitrogen fixation (Huxley 1992). The genus is represented in the Egyptian wild flora by about 16 species (El-Hadidi and Fayed 1995).The chromosomes reveal the full range of cytogenetical possibilities for understanding the delimitation, affinities and evolution of taxa (Moore 1978). Karyotype studies were principally based on the idea that symmetrical karyotypes are more primitive than asymmetrical ones; longer chromosomes than shorter ones; median centromeres with chromosome arms of equal length were more primitive than chromosomes with arms of unequal length; low basic numbers had given rise to higher ones. These features are based on the comparison between karyotypes of known relative antiquity, as determined through classical taxonomy (Sharma 1990).A number of karyological studies have been carried out on some species of Vicia, Holmquist et al. Chromosomes numbers vary from 2n= 10, 2n=12 to 2n=14. More than 55 species of the

Chromosome Numbers of some Nepalese Flora

“…Present report for Vicia faba 2n=12 tallies with the perusal of literature (Langer & Koul, 1982;Rost, 1982;Tanaka & Ohta, 1982;Anis et al, 1998 ;Zhang, 1998;Kamel, 1999;Koul et al, 1999).The reports n=6 by Kesavacharyulu et al (1982) and Jahan et al (1994) have indicated that this taxa is with the basic number x=6. The irregular number n=4, 5, 6, 7 reported by Wang & Zheng (1985) maybe due to disploidy.…”

“…V. faba L. 2n=12 Langer & Koul (1982), Rost (1982), Tanaka & Ohta (1982), Zhang et al (1982), Langer & Koul (1984), Zhang (1986), Yuan (1986), Yeh et al (1986), Sato (1988), Li (1989), Chen (1989), Rizzoni et al (1989), Matsuda & Muramatsu (1989), Schubert & Rieger (1990), Hizume (1992Hizume ( , 1993, Unnikrishna Pillai & Verma (1992), Schifi no-Wittmann et al (1994, Bisht et al (1998), Anis et al (1998), Zhang (1998), Kamel (1999), Koul et al (1999).…”

Flow cytometric analysis for ploidy level differentiation of 45 hairy vetch accessions

“…These small chromosomes appeared to be similar to Bchromosomes. Recently, Kamel (1999), performed karyological studies on 16 species of Vicia L. Among the findings reported include the presence of two Bchromosomes in Vicia hirsuta. The presence of Bchromosomes is reported to exist in Vicia (Kamel, 1999) and further investigation is necessary to definitively determine the presence of such phenomena in V. pannonica.…”

Genetic diversity in Artemisia monosperma and Artemisia judaica populations in Egypt based on morphological, karyological and molecular variations

“…Zarco (1986) has proposed the two indices A 1 and A 2 for karyotype asymmetry based on these changes. In Asteraceae growing in Egypt, detailed karyotype features for 23 species of subfamily Asteroideae were described by Badr et al (1997) and karyotypes of additional 36 species of Asteraceae were described by Kamel (1999; and Badr et al (2009). Shams (2004) confirmed counts by Badr et al (1997) that A. monosperma is tetraploid with 2n=36 and and A. judaica is diploid with 2n=16.…”