~ 118 ~ The Pharma Innovation Journal 2021; 10(12): 118-123 ISSN (E): 2277- 7695 ISSN (P): 2349-8242 NAAS Rating: 5.23 TPI 2021; 10(12): 118-123 © 2021 TPI www.thepharmajournal.com Received: 13-09-2021 Accepted: 23-10-2021 Kartheka T Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Horticultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India K Rajamani Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Horticultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India M Ganga Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Horticultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India N Manikanda Boopathi Department of Plant Biotechnology, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India Corresponding Author: Kartheka T Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Horticultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India Morphological characterization of certain Jasminum sambac genotypes using principal component analysis Kartheka T, K Rajamani, M Ganga and N Manikanda Boopathi DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/tpi.2021.v10.i12b.9333 Abstract Jasminum sambac is one of the most important traditional flower crops of India especially Tamil Nadu. Understanding the genetic variability among the different genotypes of Jasminum sambac helps in its exploitation in breeding programmes. A total of 34 genotypes comprising of traditional landraces collected from all over Tamil Nadu were evaluated for 40 qualitative traits according to the DUS descriptors specified for Jasminum sambac (Kannan M. et al., Plant Variety Journal, 2016). In order to reduce the dimensionality of the data, examine the variation and the relative contribution of the traits for the total variability, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method was adopted. PCA test in 34 genotypes for all the 40 characters resulted in fifteen Principal Components (PCs) with an eigenvalue more than one accounted for 97.21 per cent of the total variability and revealed that the traits leaf margin undulation, flower bud shape, flower shape, shape of corolla lobe, flower petal tip, leaf blade undulations, flower bud length and root suckers exhibited maximum variation. Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering and PCA results showed that the genotypes Acc. Js- 11, Acc. Js- 12, Acc. Js- 13, Acc. Js- 14, Acc. Js- 20, Acc. Js- 25, Acc. Js- 27 and Acc. Js- 32 were found to be the most diverse genotypes. Keywords: Jasminum sambac, genotypes, DUS, variability, PCA, correlation, clustering Introduction Jasminum sambac (L.) Aiton belongs to the olive family Oleaceae. The word jasmine comes from the Arabic name ‘Yasmine’ meaning fragrance. J. sambac is a small to medium sized shrub growing up to a height of 3 m. It is one of the important traditional flower crops mainly cultivated for its fragrant flowers and highly valued for their ornamental, edible and medicinal values. India is one of the evolution centers for the genus Jasminum with greater diversity and hence the Tamil Nadu (Veluswamy et al., 1975) [9] . Ramanathapuram gundumalli is the important J. sambac ecotype cultivated in Tamil Nadu. ‘Madurai Malli’ has been given Geographical Indication (GI) tag for its unique fragrance, exclusive shape and size. J. sambac phenotypes are generally classified based on the number of petal whorls present viz., single- whorled, double whorled and multi whorled types. Single whorled and double whorled cultivars are the commonly cultivated types. The single whorled cultivars are highly fragrant and utilized in the perfume industry while, the double whorled cultivars yield the highest number of flowers. The traditional method for the identification of Jasminum species is by analyzing the morphological and physiological characters (Raman, 1955; Bhatnagar, 1956; Mohammad et al., 1970) [10, 12] . Morphological characterization is essential for the identification and registration of the cultivated varieties. Hence, the present study was carried out to assess the diversity among the J. sambac genotypes through morphological characterization. Materials and Methods A germplasm comprising of 34 genotypes of Jasminum sambac (Table 1) collected from all over Tamil Nadu has been planted and maintained in the Botanical Garden, Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Horticultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. Qualitative data on the forty characters were specified by DUS guidelines proposed by PPV & FRA (Kannan M. et al., Plant Variety Journal, 2016) [1] was recorded at the appropriate developmental stages. All the observations on the leaf characteristics were recorded on the fourth fully opened leaf from the tip of the stem. Colours of the vegetative parts were observed on the plants exposed to natural growing conditions. All the colour characteristics were assessed using the latest