Morphological variability in 17 wild elephant foot yam (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius) collections from southwest India

Abstract

Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (Dennst.) Nicolson is a tuberous herb occurring in the wild and cultivated state. Vegetative morphological characters were studied at full foliage stage in 17 accessions of A. paeoniifolius which include two cultivars, 15 wild accessions and a related species, A. dubius Blume. The first principal component (PC) accounted for 42.32% of phenotypic variance followed by second for another 18.38%. Major traits that accounted for more variability in both PC1 and PC2 include offset shape, cormel weight per corm, corm fresh weight, petiole surface pattern and canopy spread. The unweighted pair-group method with mathematical averaging (UPGMA) clustering method revealed three principal clusters which separated all the accessions between Euclidean distances of 0.3-1.6. Both cluster analysis and principal co-ordinate analysis revealed T10, a morphotype of A. paeoniifolius var. campanulatus (Decne.) Sivad. cultivated in Tamil Nadu and P19 accession of A. paeoniifolius var. paeoniifolius from Karnataka as morphologically distinct, which needs further validation on the basis of floral characters or molecular markers and G3 from Gujarat as an immediate ancestor of cultivated elephant foot yam. The genotypic (GCV) and phenotypic (PCV) coefficients of variation, broad sense heritability (h 2 B) and genetic advance (GA) as a percent of the mean assessed for 18 accessions revealed high heritability estimates. A highly significant (P \ 0.01) correlation coefficient between circumference of petiole base and corm diameter, corm height, corm weight, east west spread and north south spread suggests that circumference of petiole and canopy spread are indicators to corm weight and size.

Ethnobotany of suweg, Amorphophallus paeoniifolius: Utilization and cultivation in West Java, Indonesia

“…Blancas et al (2013) inform that the availability of quantity and quality of uses underlies crop management. More specifically, Anil et al (2011) informed that some species grow wild and some are cultivated. Likewise, Erskine (2015) revealed that the suweg in Timor-Leste is a wild plant.…”

“…Suweg can also be used for traditional medicinal including to treat bronchitis, asthma and dysentery, and ailment for poisonous snake bite (Ramanathan et al 2014;Girardi et al 2015;Dharmadasa et al 2016). There are various methods of management system for suweg, but in general, it can be divided into two systems: grow naturally and being cultivated (Anil et al 2011;Suja et al 2012). For example, Mutaqin et al (2020) mentions that suweg plants grow in West Java are found in several types of agroecosystems, such as home garden, garden, rice field, and pond edge, and grows wild in forest ecosystems.…”

Ethnobotany of suweg (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius): Folk classification, habitat, and traditional conservation in Cisoka Village, Majalengka District, Cimanuk Watershed Region, Indonesia

“…Associated with the variance or diversity based on morphologists as known to the public in line with several scientific sources. Anil et al (2011) state that morphological characters such as cormel shape, cormel weight per corm, fresh corm weight, corm flesh color, and petiole surface pattern can be used for the identification of various morphotypes of Amorphophallus paeoniifolius. In addition, Santosa et al (2012) concluded that there are groupings of accessions of Amorphophallus variabilis Blume based on morphological groups.…”

Ethnobotany of Amorphophallus paeoniifolius: Morphology, folk classification, and habitat in area around Ciremai Mountain, Cimanuk Watershed Region, West Java, Indonesia

“…Ethically, Permatasari et al (2014) state that the characteristics of the suweg can be seen from several morphological characters such as roots, tubers, leaves, and petioles. Anil et al (2011) state that several variables that can be used as evaluations for systematic or variant of A. paeoniifolius include tuber size, tuber skin color, petiole color, petiole surface, leaf color, leaf color, and leaf texture.…”