Morphological and Biochemical Diversity among Different Populations of Papaver pseudo-orientale Medw. in the Northwest of Iran

Papaver pseudo-orientale Medw is a hexaploid plant with 42 chromosomesfound in the northwest of Iran and throughout eastern Turkey.  In this study, three populations of P. pseudo-orientale species were collected from three habitats (Solik, Golshikhan, and Qotur) in West Azerbaijan province, and their morphological characteristics as well as amino acids, fatty acids, and thebaine contents were measured.  The results showed that within all three populations, petiole length had the highest variability. The distance between two lobes of leaf and petiole length as two important features had the highest coefficient of variation among examined populations. In the studied populations, the highest amount of thebaine was found in the plant capsules. In this regard, Golshikhan population showed the highest amount of thebaine concentration in capsule. Also, this population was superior to other studied populations in term of thebaine amount in roots. The highest total amount of amino acids in stems  and leaves were observed in Golshikhan and Solik populations, respectively. The results of this study might be applied for breeding programs of this species and could be used for domestication of this valuable alkaloid containing plant.