Flowering Features and Breeding Systems of Seven Native Salvia Species in Iran

Before starting any classical breeding program on plants, it is necessary to dominate the fertilization behavior of that plant. Despite a large number of Salvia species in the flora of Iran, there is little information about the breeding system of this genus. In the current study, the flower specifications and breeding system of seven Salvia species (Lamiaceae) have been described during 2017-2018. Plants phenology and some flower features were recorded as well as hand pollination used for fertility investigation. The results showed that all species had long flowering periods. The highest flowering period (41 days) was observed in S. virgata. The most frequent pollinators were bees and flies. Salvia virgata and S. nemorosa showed about 90% survival to the new habitat. Two species including S. atropatana and S. syriaca had heterostylous flowers (long-styled morph). The results of manual pollination indicated that open pollination provided the best treatment with the highest average of seed set (73.63%) in all species. The seed set in the xenogamy treatment of different species and accessions was in the range of 10.2 (S. syriaca) to 32.5% (S. frigida). It was observed that seed set among different species in geitonogamy andspontaneous autogamy varied widely from 2.60 - 17.30% and 2.98 - 12.18%, respectively. It was concluded that Salvia species in the present study were relatively self-incompatible (ISI) and out-cross. They need pollinators to adequate fertility. They did not observe any correlations between ISI and heteromorphy.