Rita Paul2, Aninda Mandal1 and Animesh K. Datta*1
1Department of Botany, Cytogenetics and Plant Breeding Section, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, West Bengal, India
2Department of Botany, Charuchandra College, Kolkata- 29, India
*Corresponding author email: dattaanimesh@gmail.com
Abstract: Karyomorphological studies were performed in four seed spices of Umbelliferae (the species also possesses immense therapeutic uses) namely, Apium graveolens L. (celery), Cuminum cyminum L. (cumin), Foeniculum vulgare Mill. (fennel) and Trachyspermum amni L. (ajowan) and it revealed six (celery: 2n = 22 = 4Dscsm + 2Dsm + 2Cscm + 10Cm + 2Jm + 2Ksm; cumin: 2n = 14 = 2Dsm + 2Escst + 4Est + 2Gsm + 2Hst + 2It and ajowan: 2n = 18 = 2Ascsm + 2Bst + 2Cscm + 4Cm + 2Dsm + 6Est) and four (fennel: 2n = 22 = 8Cm + 4Dscsm + 2Dsm + 8Fm) morphologically distinct chromosome types. Metacentric chromosomes were prevalent in celery and fennel; while, a telocentric pair was located in cumin. Characteristically two long and two short pairs of chromosomes were marked in ajowan and celery respectively. Total haploid chromatin length was noted to be 30.41 μm ± 2.30 in celery, 19.04 μm ± 1.61 in cumin, 29.12 μm ± 2.73 in fennel and 32.45 μm ± 3.52 in ajowan. Celery and fennel were found to possess symmetric karyotypes. Satellites in all the cases were associated to short arms.
Keywords: Karyomorphology, Seed spices, Umbelliferae
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