Karyotipic characteristics of several species of Matricaria L. and Tripleurosperum L. genera

Karyological characteristics variation in Tripleurospermum and Matricaria genera, collected from various locations of Iran, was investigated. α-bromonaphthalene was used for pretreatment, Lewitsky solution for fixation, 1N NaOH for hydrolysis and finally, aceto iron-hematoxylin for staining stage. Detailed karyotype features, i.e. total chromosome length (TL), intrachromosomal asymmetry (A1) and interchromosomal asymmetry (A2), total form percent (TF%), asymmetry index (AI) and formula karyotype showed the population were either diploid or tetraploid. T. diciforme from Zabol had symmetric karyotype and a population of M. recutita from Hungary had asymmetric karyotype. The largest chromosome belonged to M. recutita from Isfahan and the smallest chromosome belonged to M. recutita from Hungary. Cluster analysis based on cytogenetic data showed one group containing diploid populations and other group containing tetraploid populations. On the basis of cluster analysis, T. disciforme from Tehran and M. recutita from Zabol had the highest similarity and T. sevanese from Fars and T. disciforme from Zabol had the lowest similarity. Result of principal components analysis showed that more than 89.48 percentages of total variation was justified by the first three factors.