Pollen characteristics and relationships of 12 species and 6 cultivars of Lilium

Key words: 
• botany /
• Lilium /
• pollen morphology /
• germplasm resource /
• genetic relationship /
• scanning electron microscope(SEM) /
• cluster analysis

Abstract: China is the natural distributional center of Lilium, however, more than half of the wild species still remains to be exploited. Researches on wild resources is an important base to breed new cultivars. Pollen morphology of 12 wild Lilium species(including 2 varieties, distributed in the south of China) and 6 cultivars(5 cultivars ofAsiatic hybrids, 1 cultivarof Longiflorum hybrids) had been observed and compared by means of SEM(scanning electron microscope). The results show that the pollen grains of lily are generally ellipsoid or long ellipsoidwith mono-culpus and reticulate sculptures. Culpus reaches to the two poles. Apertures of reticulate sculptures is erose or approximately rotundity with different width. The granules look like nubble or wart and are closely arranged to reticulate spine. The width of spine is 1.17- 2.48m, and is breaken sometimes. There are protuberances in apertures of reticulate, seldom none. The phylogenetic relationships between 12 species and 6 cultivarswere discussed based on the pollen morphology. The five pollen morphological index of 12 species and 6 cultivars were clustered. The results show that the species and cultivars had been sorted to two kinds, section Lilium and section Sinomartagon except of L. lancifolium.[Ch, 2 fig. 2 tab. 13 ref.]