Classification by Morphological Characteristics and their Correlation of Polygonatum Species Collected from Gyeongnam Area

This study was done to obtain their morphological traits to analyse genetic diversity and intraspecific relationship of 47 Polygonatum species collected from Gyeongnam province. Plant height was the highest in P. thunbergii but the shortest in P. involucratum. Growth habit and its colors were classified to 3 groups, respectively. Leaf shapes were sorted to 5 groups including lanceolate with petiole or none, petiole colors were done to 3 groups including a species having dark green leaves of purple colored margin. Flower shapes were divided as 3 groups of urceolate, tubular and gourd shapes, and its colors were white, greenish white and light green, especially light green in a species with gourd shape. Filament shapes were two types of flatness and cylinder. Peduncle color and bract attached below it showed 4 types, respectively. Fruit shapes were sorted to 3 groups. In 100-fruit weights P. ordoratum var. pluriflorum showed the greatest but P. involucratum did the least. Two species were completely resistant to leaf brightness although 7 species showed less than 7 % infection rates. Rhizome yields ranged from 4.4 g to 94.8 g per plant, showing their significant variation. In correlation analysis between 9 major characters, rhizome yield per plant was positively correlated with plant height, stalk diameter, leaf number, leaf length and width, and rhizome diameter but leaf brightness was negatively done with plant height, stalk diameter, leaf number and length, 100-seed weight, rhizome yield per plan and rhizome diameter.