RESEARCH ARTICLE

ANALYSIS OF MORPHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF Melastoma malabathricum FLOWER

Abstract

Melastoma malabathricum, known as Maha Bovitiya in Sinhala, is a native perennial shrub belonging to Family Melastomataceae. It produces an attractive purple flower, which could be a candidate in future floriculture industry in Sri Lanka. This study was carried out to determine the variation in flower morphology and to evaluate the physiological aspects of Melastoma malabathricum flower from selected locations around Kamburupitiya in southern Sri Lanka. Ten quantitative characters (of petal number, petal width and length, flower length and width, stamen number, sepal number, peduncle length, OD value of pigment extract and vacuole pH) were recorded from 24 accessions from 10 random locations. In Principal Component Analysis, three principal components explained 84% of total observed variation. In the dendogram, six clusters formed at rescale distance less than 5. Petal number varied from 5 to 6 among 24 accessions, while number of stamens varied from 4-5. Number of sepals varied from 5 to 6. The petal extract in 0.1M NaOH turned blue, indicating that the pigment of Melastoma malabathricum is anthocyanin. The vacuolar pH was around 3.8. The OD values at wave length of 525 nm, in the pigment extract was 0.038 per 1 g of fresh petal weight from selected accessions representing the total collection. With the increase of pH, pigment extract turned the purple color to light brown and then to green in basic pH conditions. Our study would be useful as an initial step in revealing potential morphological and genetic variation of Melastoma malabathricum for a variety of flower morphologies.

Keywords: Anthocyanin, Melastoma malabathricum flower, morphological variation, vacuolar pH

How to Cite: Jayaprada,N.V.T,Sudarshanee Geekiyanage,, (2016). ANALYSIS OF MORPHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF Melastoma malabathricum FLOWER.WILDLANKA, 4(2):Pages 034-041

Published On:2016-06-30

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