Muhammad Abdul Aziz ⁾¹⁽, Muhammad Nael Khattab⁽¹⁾ and Ghadeer Al-Houshi ^(2)*

(1) Department of Field Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria.

(2) Directorate of agriculture in Latakia, Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Syria.

Corresponding author: Ghadeer Al-Houshi, E-mail: ghadeerrafikalhoushi@gmail.com)

Received: 31/05/2020                                          Accepted: 7/07/2020

Abstract

This study was conducted during the season 2018-2019 in four different locations in Jableh rural – Syria, namely: Al-Sokhaba, Jaibol, Bttimana, and Bsindiana, in order to study the morphological diversity, survey and characterize the distributed species of genus Malva using indices related to different parts of the plant. 11 quantitive characteristics were used to distinguish between species, in addition to some qualitive characteristics related to growth behavior, flowering and fruiting. Three species of Malva L. were identified in Jaibol and Al-Sokhaba (M. rotundifolia L., M. parviflora L., M .sylvestris L.), while only M .sylvestris L. was identified in Bttimana, and Bsindiana. M. sylvestris was superior to M. parviflora and M. rotundifolia in plant height, leaf and fruit characteristics. Location significantly affected most of the studied characteristics. M. parviflora L. was the most affected species by location, while M. rotundifolia L. was the lowest. All studied characteristics were influenced by interaction between location and species. Cluster analysis showed distribution of the three species into three main groups. Morphological variance in the same location showed potential use of the studied characteristics in distinguishing between the observed species in the same environment, but interaction between plant species and location could make it hard to use the studied characteristics to distinguish between the observed species in different environments.

Key words: Malva, morphological characterization, cluster analysis, Mallow.

Full paper in Arabic: PDF