Morphological Diversity of Black Cumin (Nigella sativa L.) Accessions using Multivariate Analysis Methods

Nigella sativa L. (black cumin) belonging to the Ranunculaceae family, is one of the most important medicinal plants and wild and cultivated forms of this plant is used in Iran. Genetic diversity of 27 accessions of N .Sativa L. from different places of Iran was characterized by morphological characteristics and data was analyzed using univariate and multivariate analyses. ANOVA revealed high significant differences among the accessions based on all of the measured characteristics. Phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation were high for most traits indicating high diversity of the studied traits. Correlation coefficients among traits showed that plant height had significantly positive correlation with all traits. Principal component analysis indicated that the first two principal components with eigenvalues more than 1 explained 83/35% of the variability among the accessions. Cluster analysis based on Euclidean distance, divided the accessions into four major groups. Considering the grouping, there was no relationship between genetic diversity and geographical distance of the accessions. The results suggested that there is a considerable genetic variation among N. sativa L. accessions.