VARIABILITY OF CONES AND SEEDSCALESIN PICEA SPECIES AND THEIR FORMS IN CONDITIONS OF THE CITY OF OMSK

Abstract

The study addressedthe morphometric indicators of cones and seed scales, such as length, width, and weight (before opening and after drying). Similarly, seed scales were measured, the marginal lines were described, and the number of seed scales in the cones was counted. The summary tables showed significant differences in the length and width of cones (Student's criterion). The correlation analysis was used to quantify the association between various indicators and the seed scale size. The samples were collected in the Genze Dendrological Garden, a natural landmark of regional significance. The study was carried out usingMolchanov and Smirnov’s (1967) method in the summer-autumn period. Siberian spruce (both blue and green forms), Serbian spruce, Colorado spruce (green form), and Canadian spruce had medium and large cones, which indicates a high adaptive capacity of these species. The length of cones in blue-grey and golden forms of Colorado spruce was below the average, indicating a low adaptive ability of the introduced species in the West Siberian foreststeppe. The correlation analysis showed a moderate dependence of the weight of seed scales and the weight of cones after drying (K = 0.60). A small dependence was found between the weight of seed scales and the length of cone after drying (K = 0.39). The size of seed scales strongly correlated with the size of cones (K ˃ 0.8). Student's t-test did not reveal significant differences in the width of cones in the studied species and forms of spruce, except for green form of Colorado spruce as compared to Serbian spruce and Canadian spruce, and blue-grey form of Colorado spruce as compared to Canadian spruce , showing notable differences at 1% significance point. By the length of cones, the studied species can be categorized into twoessentially different groups, the first one including all forms of Siberian spruce and Colorado spruce and the second one including Serbian spruce and Canadian spruce .