Qualitative and Quantitative Seed Characteristics Diversity from Girnar Reserve Forest, Gujarat, India

• Published in: National Academy of Sciences, India. Proceedings. Section B. Biological Sciences Vol. 87; no. 1; pp. 147 - 159
• Main Authors: Nakar, R. N., Jadeja, B. A., Chovatiya, V. P., Mandavia, Chetana
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01.03.2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Fruits; Herbs; Life Sciences; Morphology; Multivariate analysis; Nucleic Acid Chemistry; Physical characteristics; Plant Biochemistry; Research Article; Ripening; Seeds; Shrubs; Species; Taxonomy; Gujarat India; India; Cluster analysis; Qualitative and quantitative characters; Seed morphology; Seed collection time; Girnar reserve forest; Principal component analysis
• ISSN: 0369-8211; 2250-1746
• DOI: 10.1007/s40011-015-0566-1

Seeds of 97 plant species were studied for morphological characteristics after collection during botanical field visits from Girnar Reserve Forest, Gujarat, India. There was a significant variation in quantitative characters of seeds, while qualitative traits also exhibited great diversity. Seeds of trees showed highest values for all quantitative features measured as volume, length, width, thickness and weight among all other botanical group such as climbers, herbs, undershrubs and shrubs during the study. The range of seed volume varied from 0.01 to 21.48 cm 3 for 63 trees, 0.23 to 1.42 cm 3 for 12 herbs, 0.31 to 0.72 cm 3 for 10 undershrubs, 0.35 to 0.93 cm 3 for 9 shrubs, and 0.37 to 1.77 cm 3 for 3 climbers. Fruiting time varied for species within groups, but mostly for all plants seed collection time was during dry season after fruit ripening. In the principal component multivariate analysis, only one principal component had an Eigen value above one and hence found significant, which explained 73 % morphological variation in the whole data set. The separation of 97 species using PCA and cluster analysis was mostly in agreement with their group specific taxonomical identification of each plant. This study not only provided information related to seed morphology and taxonomy, but can be used effectively in diversity study as well as social forestry programmes.