Study on Reproductive Characters of Two Species Acacia ehrenbergiana and Acacia raddiana, Al-Jummum District, Western Area, K.S.A.

Abstract

The present study has been carried out at Al-Jummum District, Western K.S.A., with aim of investigating some reproductive characters of Acacia ehrenbergiana and Acacia tortilis subsp raddiana. The specific goals are to investigate and measure the fruit and seed sizes and weights, and seed number per fruit. The findings of the research work show that the pod and seeds characteristics differed significantly among the two species under the study. The differences were in parameters measured, which included Pod length (PL cm), Pod width (PW cm), Seed number/pod (SNP-1), Seed length (SL mm), and Seed width (SW mm). However, the mean pod length of 6.4 cm of Acacia ehrenbergiana was significantly higher than that of acacia tortilis subsp.raddian with 4.5 cm. The Acacia tortilis subsp raddiana recoded the highest mean seed number/pod of 9.8 seed/pod against 5.3 seed number/pod of Acacia ehrenbergiana The mean pod width of 5mm of Acacia tortilis subsp raddiana, was higher than the 3,8mm of Acacia ehernbergiana. The study also revealed considerable variations in pods and seeds weights between two species under study. The weight of 100 pods of Acacia raddiana reported the highest weight of 240 gm, and 18 gm for Acacia ehrenbergiana. The weight of 31 gm of 30pods and 15gm of the seeds of 30 pods were obtained from Acacia raddiana against 3gm and 1gm for Acacia erhrenbergian respectively. The study found that Acacia tortilis susp. raddiana had the largest weights of empty pod 0.53gm, pod 1.03 gm, seed/pod 0.5 gm and 5 gm of 100 seeds, while Acacia ehrenbergiana had the smallest weights of 0.03 gm, o.1 gm, 0.07 gm and 1gm respectively. The variations of Acacia tortilis susp. radiana pods, this may be due to the ecological adaptability. The study revealed that the pod and seeds characteristics differed significantly between the two species under study.