Karyomorphology of some Crocus L. taxa from Uşak province in Turkey

Abstract

The increasing number of new taxa for each day and the presence of the samples exhibiting variable characters depend on this situation make very problematic the genus Crocus as taxonomic and phylogenetic. For this reason, the many studies based on PCR, DNA barcoding and cytogenetics are applied to provide contribution for taxonomic problems and phylogenetic relationships of the genus Crocus. In this study, detailed karyotypic investigation of four taxa (C. pallasii Goldb. subsp. pallasii, C. olivieri J.Gay subsp. olivieri, C. fleischeri J.Gay and C. uschakensis Rukśans) belonging to Uşak province in Turkey was carried out and compared with the studies made previously. The somatic chromosome numbers of studied taxa were found to be 2n=14 for C. pallasii subsp. pallasii, 2n=8 for C. olivieri subsp. olivieri, 2n=20 for C. fleischeri and 2n=20 for C. uschakensis. C. uschakensis has only satellite on the short arm of chromosome 7. Some differences with previous studies in aspect of chromosome number and morphology were determined in this study. Furthermore, there is no enough literature information on Crocus uschakensis and it was provided with this study based on detailed chromosomal investigation.