GENETIC COMPONENTS OF MORPHOLOGICAL VARIATION IN SALIX REPENS

Abstract

SummaryThe presence of statistically significant levels of genetic variation in a series of quantitative morphological characters in a dune population of Salix repens L. was demonstrated by the comparison of half‐sibs grown in the glasshouse from field‐collected seed. Although the plants showed considerable phenotypic differentiation between ridges and slacks in the natural population, only the amount of branching could be shown to be genetically different between plants grown from cuttings from the two environments. Comparison of plants grown from different collections of cuttings showed that these were genetically different for a variety of other morphological characters, although this variation was not correlated with ridge or slack origin. Analysis of the number of collections of this dioecious species containing male or female flowers, or flowers of both sexes, indicates that even within areas 0–5 m in diameter several different clones frequently occur.