Taxonomic studies of theMuscari botryoides complex in Hungary

Abstract

The ploidy level and karyotype of Muscari botryoides (s.l.) samples from Hungary (25 localities) and Romania (1 locality: locus classicus of M. transsilvanicum) were determined. The Romanian sample proved to be diploid (2n=1 8), while in Hungary both diploid and tetraploid (2n=36) populations occurred. The karyotypes of all diploid populations were similar: 2 pairs of long acrocentric (one of them usually with satellites) + 3 pairs of medium-sized submetacentric-metacentric + 4 pairs of short t metacentric chromosomes. All diploid populations in Hungary can be identified as M. transsilvanicum. There is no reason to support the taxon M. botryoides subsp. hungaricum because it does not differ from the sample collected at the locus classicus of M. transsilvanicum (Romania, Sibiu-Gusterita) in any of the characteristics mentioned in its protologue. Its karyotype also corresponds to that of M. transsilvanicum. Contrary to the former assumptions, the tetraploid M. botryoides is also native to Hungary. The tetraploid karyotype seems to be somewhat of a duplication of the diploid one. Morphological characters used in the identification keys are not suitable for unambiguous separation of the taxa mentioned above, though morphometric analyses revealed some quantitative differences between diploids and tetraploids. Their separation on species level can only be supported by the supposed reproductive barriers caused by different ploidy level and chorology. In Hungary M. transsilvanicum is restricted mostly to the Eupannonian Region, the Mecsek and Villany Mts. M. botryoides does not occur in the Eupannonicum, instead it inhabits the subatlantic hilly W and SW part of Hungary and the Northern Mountain Range. The latter territory (including also the Slovak localities) seems to be the easternmost extension of the area of M. botryoides.