Karyotype analyses of some Lilium L. (Liliceae) species

SUMMARY Karyotype Analyses of Some Lilium L. (Liliaceae) Species The genus Lilium L. (lily) belonging to family Liliaceae is distributed in Temperate Asia, Europe, and North America. It includes over 100 species in the world. In Turkey, the genus is represented by 10 taxa. In the present study, karyotype analysis of four species of these taxa was done. Karyotype analysis was carried out on the following taxa; Lilium candidum L.JL,. martagon L., Lilium ciliatum P.H. Davis, L. carniolicum subsp. ponticum (C. Koch) Davis and Henderson. Materials used in this work were collected from Trabzon (Sürmene) and Füze (İkizdere) between June and July in 1996 and 1997. The collected species were dried through herbarium techniques and bulbs were obtained. The bulbs belonging to each species were germinated in specially prepared medium plastic spots. The young root tips were excised and stained in Feulgen and then permanent slides were prepared. Chromosome number, complement, measurement, arm ratios and centromere position of each species were carried out on the permanent slides. Finally, in this work, all taxa investigated were found to be diploid species with 2n=24 chromosomes. However, chromosome morphologies were observed to be different although these taxa had the same chromosome number. The karyotype analysis showed that the karyotype of these species consists of median, submedian, subterminal and terminal chromosomes. Key Words: Lilium L., Liliaceae, Karyotype Analysis, Turkey VI