Abstract

Distribution and Morphological Variations in Allopatric Populations of Hippophae rhamnoides ssp. turkestanica in Lahaul-Spiti, Dry temperate Himalayas

Author(s): Manohar Lal, Virendra Singh and Reena Devi

Hippophae rhamnoidesssp. turkestanicahas great potential for greening the cold desert area and changing socio-economic status of the tribal communities. In spite of the potential of the species, study on geograph-ical distribution and morphological variation have not been done. Therefore, present attempt has been made to pre-dict areas highly suitable for the in-situ conservation and potential morphotype Himachal Pradesh. Fifty five (55) female accessions and thirty seven (37) male accessionswere studied in wild population of seabuckthorn in Lahaul-Spiti district. Hippophae rhamnoides subspturkestanicagrows in the Lahaul-Spiti district as shrub and tree form. In the accessions there is variation in plants height; leaf length, width and petiolelength; mature fruits size, colour and shape; seeds size and colour were recorded. The cluster analysis of 55 female accessions resulted into seven (7) mor-photypes of the Hippophae rhamnoidessubsp. turkestanica. It has been observed that plant height and leaf length decreased with increasing the altitude and petiolelength of the leaf depends on the length of theleaf. Fruit length affected by altitude, plant height and canopy spread. The length of peduncle shows directly proportional relation to the length of fruit. Seed length depends on the fruit length. Dioecism and wind pollination make this species an obli-gate out-crosser. The two features coupled with occasional sexual polymorphism serve as the basis of genetic varia-tion. This variation manifests at the morphological, cytological, ecological and molecular levels. It is concluded that wide variations exist indifferent populations of seabuckthorn growing in this region. Therefore, conservation of the varied morphotypes are required by in-situ and ex-situ methods.

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