Abstract
The genus Plantago is known with more than 200 species, used extensively all over the world as a promising source of functional foods and for various remedies. The present cytological study covers 24 populations of 5 species of the genus Plantago and intraspecific cytomorphological diversity in P. depressa from the Northwest Himalaya. Out of these, P. himalaica (n=12) is a first euploid report for the world. The B-chromosomes have been reported for the first time in 3 species, P. lanceolata (n=6+0−1B), P. major (n=6+0−1B), and diploid (n=6+0−1B) and tetraploid (n=12+0−1B) cytotypes of P. depressa. Beside this, intraspecific cytomorphological variations are also reported in P. depressa with three different cytotypes (2x, 4x, 6x). The detailed meiotic course of all the populations reveals the meiotic anomalies in the form of cytomixis, un-oriented bivalents, chromosome stickiness, laggards and chromatin bridges. The effect of these abnormalities on size and viability of the pollen grains is also discussed. The presence of B-chromosomes is found to be related with the reduction in the meiotic anomalies. Dendrogram constructed for the quantitative morphological features between the three intraspecific cytotypes of P. depressa, depicts the close relationship of diploid cytotype to the tetraploid one, rather than the hexaploid populations.
Published Version
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