Elucidating karyological and agro-morphological characteristics of Vicia cassia boiss. and V. aintabensis Boiss. & Hausskn

This study aimed to determine the karyological characteristics, DNA content, and agro-morphological plant characteristics of Vicia cassia Boiss. and Vicia aintabensis Boiss. & Hausskn. collected from natural flora of Turkiye. The results were also compared with those of Vicia sativa. The main stem length, the numbers of main stem branches per plant, the number of leaves of main stem, the number of leaflets per leaf, the number of grains per pod, the pod width and length as well as thousand seed weight characteristics showed significant variation across the species, with the exception of 50% inflorescences (p < 0.4987) and natural plant heights (p < 0.3276). Karyotype formulas of Vicia cassia, V. aintabensis and V. sativa were determined as 2n = 2x = 14 = 3 m + 1t(sat) + 1sm + 2t, 2n = 2x = 14 = 1sm + 4st + 2t, and 2n = 2x = 12 = 5st + 1 m, respectively. The genome size of V. aintabensis (17,227.47 Mbp) was 5.26 and 5.01 times larger than V. cassia (3273.85 Mbp) and V. sativa (3435.22 Mpb), respectively. The importance of the karyomorphological data was also evaluated with the morphological evidences.