A taxonomic study on pollen morphology characteristics, chromosome karyotype characteristics, floral and fruit pigment compositions of 13 species and hybrids of Lonicera L

Abstract In this paper, the pollen morphology characteristics, chromosome karyotype characteristics, floral and fruity pigment compositions of 13 species and hybrids of Lonicera L. were analyzed by means of scanning electron microscopy, root tip squash method, HPLC-MS and GC-MS, and then they were classified separately to discuss their genetic relationship and taxonomic relationship. According to the morphological taxonomy, Lonicera L. distributed in northern are divided into two categories by whether the branchlets are hollow or not. In this experiment, Lonicera chrysanthaTurcz. ex Ledeb., Lonicera maackii (Rupr.) Maxim., Lonicera ruprechtiana Regel., Lonicera tatarica Linn. and Lonicera korolkowi ‘Zabelii’. belongsto the category of hollow branchlets; and Lonicera edulisTurcz. and Lonicera tatarinowiiMaxim. belongs to the category of branchlets with solid white pith. Through the analysis of pollen morphology characteristics, chromosome karyotype characteristics, floral and fruit pigment compositions, and using the above four indexes for clustering, Lonicera ruprechtiana Regel. and Lonicera tatarica Linn. can always be clustered together. Five hybrids such as Lonicera korolkow‘Zabelii’.×Lonicera maackii (Rupr.) Maxim., Lonicera korolkow‘Zabelii’.×Lonicera tatarica Linn.No.8 etal. can basically clustered with their parents, which is conform to the morphological taxonomy. These results indicate that the analysis of pollen morphology characteristics, chromosome karyotype characteristics, floral and fruit pigment compositions, has certain value and significance for the study of system classification and genetic relationship of Lonicera L., and the conclusions of this study partially support morphological taxonomy. Among the four clusters, the clustering result of pollen morphology characteristics was in the highest agreement with morphological taxonomy.