Studies on Morphological Variation of Flowers of Medicago falcatain Xinjiang

The morphological variation of flowers of ten populations of Medicago falcata L.were studied by observing and measuring the indicators such as the number of flowers in each inflorescence,style,standard,wing petals and keel petals.The results showed that there was a certain variation in phenotypic traits of flowers among Medicago falcata L.populations,the total average coefficient of variation in each character was between 6.18(standard length) and 28.69(calyx length),while the value among populations was between 9.26(Tacheng population) and 30.89(Habahe population),which indicated that there were higher diversities in phenotypic traits of flowers of Medicago falcata L.Correlation analysis showed that there was a significant correlation between parts of the floral traits,there was a significant positive correlation between phenotypic variation and geographic distance.Cluster analysis revealed that ten populations could be divided into 3 groups:group 1 including Buerjin population and Tekesi population,group 2 including Jimunai population and Fuhai population,group 3 including the other populations.