Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 42: 347-352, 1995. 347 (g) 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Biochemical and cytological analyses in natural populations of Vicia benghalensis L. E v i d e n c e f o r two distinct g r o u p s Angela Rosa Piergiovanni, Incoronata Galasso, Pietro Perrino & Domenico Pignone* CNR - Istituto del Germoplasma, Bari, Italy (*author for correspondence) Received 10 May 1994; accepted 30 September 1994 Key words: heterochromatin, rate of allogamy, microevolution, seed proteins, Vicia Summary 27 accessions of Vicia benghalensis from different geographical origins constitute the pool on which the prese study was performed. Genetic variation among the samples was biochemically and cytologically evaluate storage protein profiles and C-banded karyotypes were analysed from single individuals of each accession. SDS-PAGE has shown the possibility to divide the samples into two groups, each characterized by specifi profiles. The two patterns were indicated as A and B. From individual seed electrophoresis it was ascertain samples possessing the pattern A showed a low level of individual variation, while those possessing the pa were highly polymorphic, thus suggesting differences in the allogamic rate. The cytological analysis demonstrated the presence of two groups of accessions, one being much richer in heterochromatin as evidenced by C-banding (H +) than the other (H-). The analysis of biochemical and kar data showed a constant association between pattern A and karyotype H- and between pattern B and karyo On the basis of these results it is proposed to consider V. benghalensis as a highly heteromorphic species, in which two groups may be identified. Introduction The genus Vicia is constituted by a number of species ranging from 180 to 210 (Hanelt & Mettin, 1989), widely distributed throughout the temperate zones of the world. The level of morphological variation implied the division of this genus in several sections, each one containing a more homogeneous group of taxa (Ball, 1968; Kupicha, 1976). This genus has been and still is object of extensive cytological (Yamamoto, 1973; Blanco et al., 1975; Perrino & Pignone, 1981; Maxted et al., 1991; Cremonini et al., 1992), biochem- ical (Kumarai & Narayana, 1984; Perrino et al., 1984; Perrino et al., 1991) and molecular (Delre et al., 1988; Mancini et al., 1988; Van De Ven et al., 1993) stud- ies aimed to improve the understanding of its complex taxonomy. Sometimes the level of individual variation observed within a single species may be sufficient t support its subspecific partition. Among the species of the section Cracca S.F. Gray, V. benghalensis L, still has an unclear taxonomy. Some authors considered V. benghalensis L. and V. atrop- urpurea Desf. as synonyms (e.g. Ball, 1968), while others identify characters which allow to make a dis- tinction such as Chooi (1971) who reported that V benghalensis possess 44% more DNA per nucleus as V. atropurpurea. A detailed description of the above reported taxonomical confusion has been produced by Mettin & Hanelt (1967). As a consequence of this unclear classification, pos- sibly due to the absence of evident morphological vari- ation, both names appear in the seed catalogue of gen banks; nevertheless the application of one name or the other seems to be more related to the opinions of the collectors/evaluators than to objective criteria.