Investigation of Morphological Variation among Some Salvia L. Species and Ecotypes By Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Salvia L. genus has antibacterial, antioxidant, antidiabetic and culinary properties. This genus consists of 55 species including 17 endemic ones in Iran. Out crossing and widespread distribution of Salvia L. genus plants have led to great impact on their morphological variation of ecotypes. This study was conducted for investigating morphological variation as well as characters relationships in nine ecotypes of four species named Salvia. nemorosa, S. spinosa, S. verticillata and S. virgata based on Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications in Agricultural Education Center of Qazvin. Difference among ecotypes was significant at all studied traits. All traits had positive and significant correlation with wet and dry weight of plants. On the other hand the correlation between leaf number and leaf length, leaf width and also the correlation of flower length and leaf and flower number were negative. The results of stepwise regression revealed that flowers and leaves dry weight and then branch number had more effects on total dry weight, respectively. In factor analysis, four primary factors justified 94.9 percent of total variation among characters and the first one named yield factor because of its high coefficients in weighting and numeral traits. Totally the results of this study indicated that genetic differences explained notable variation of characters than environmental effects.