Characterizing the Morphological Descriptors of Thirty Seed Sources of Teak (Tectona grandis L.f.) Concerning Sustainable Forestry

Abstract

Teak (Tectona grandis L.f.) plantations have increased recently in India; however, morphological descriptors for teak are still lacking. Thus, the goal of this work was to develop descriptors based on morphological characteristics. Among 30 seed sources collected from different states of India, 24 morphological descriptors, including leaf length, leaf width, presence of petiole, petiole length, leaf shape, shape of leaf apex, shape of leaf base, leaf texture, phyllotaxy, leaf attitude, leaf margin, leaf margin undulation, leaf brightness, leaf venation, leaf main vein, leaf veins, leaf vein color, leaf color, leaf pubescence, young leaf color, number of internodes, internodal length, trunk spots, and trunk color, were developed based on leaf and stem characteristics. These seed sources exhibited a difference in all traits except leaf shape, shape of leaf apex, leaf phyllotaxy, leaf margin, leaf venation, leaf main vein, and presence of trunk spots. The Jaccard similarity index was used to calculate the genetic similarity between the sources, and the Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) method was used to perform a cluster analysis (four groups at a similarity of 0.5 were obtained). According to the observations made, most of the sources exhibited high similarity, which indicates that only a few characteristics can be used to distinguish the sources.