Genetic diversity of native Yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) accessions based on morphological traits

Studies of native plants are very attractive as valuable reserves and pristine species in the study of plant diversity. The Iridaceae family is valuable and have special importance in the ornamental-medicinal plants industry. Yellow flag that often grows in wetlands and very humid places is a famous ornamental plant and has economic value in the perfume industry. The study of plant morphological traits as a basis for genetic diversity is very efficient and based on this in the present study, yellow flag diversity based on morphological traits has been studied.

In this study, 16 accessions of yellow flag species in Guilan and Mazandaran provinces from the coasts from Astara to Juibar were identified and collected by field studies and also grouped into three populations based on their geographical location. Thirteen morphological and ornamental attributes of yellow flag including length, width and number of leaves, length and diameter of peduncle, length and width of pendant, length and width of cream, length and width of petals, number of flowers per branch and flowering branch length have been carefully measured. In order to perform analysis of variance and compare the mean data of morphological traits in a completely randomized design in three replications have been evaluated using SAS software and graphs were drawn using Excel software and Principal component analysis has been evaluated using SPSS software. The data were embedded in NTedit software to generate the matrix. To determine the similarity of 16 studied accessions and group them in terms of phenotypic characteristics (morphology), cluster analysis was performed.

The results of analysis of variance showed that all ornamental morphological traits of yellow flag including length, width and number of leaves, pedicel length and diameter, sepal length and width, style length and width, petal length and width, number of flowers and stem length showed significant differences in the studied accessions at the level of 1 and 5 percent. In cluster analysis, it was found that the studied populations were divided into four main groups in terms of traits measured from the cut-off points obtained in clustering the whole populations. Thus, accessions F, P, H, M, O, K, E, and G in the first group, accessions B, J, I, L, A and N in the second group, accession C in the third group and accession Q in the group of four clusters have been became. The results obtained from the correlation table of quantitative traits show that the most positive and significant correlations are related to sepal length and sepal width (r = 62%), sepal width and petal width (r = 68%) as well as sepal width and style width. (r = 61%). The mentioned parameters are one of the most important ornamental traits in iris and the existing correlations show that the factors that improve each of them can probably also improve the traits associated with them.

The findings of the analysis of the present study indicate that there is considerable variation in morphological traits among the studied accessions. From the results of vegetative and reproductive traits, it can be inferred that Ramsar accession has more potential in the field of morphological studies of yellow flag. This indicates that there is a good genetic potential among yellow flag accessions in Guilan and Mazandaran provinces as one of its distribution centers in Iran. Therefore, breeders in the field of ornamental plant breeding can identify the desired traits and characteristics in commercial ornamental plants to collect hereditary reserves.