Pheotypic Diversity Analysis of Main Ornamental Traits in the Germplasm Resources of Spathiphyllum
Spathiphyllum Schott is a perennial herb of Araceae,which is an important foliage plant for ornamental.Phenotypic diversity of germplasm resources is the basis of ornamental plants breeding and application.In the current study,27 important ornamental traits of 20 Spathiphyllum germplasm resources were observed and the phenotypic di-versity was analyzed by multivariate statistical analysis methods including variance analysis,correlation analysis,hier-archical cluster analysis(HCA)and principal component analysis(PCA).The results of variance analysis showed that the coefficients of variation of the 16 quantitative traits ranged from 27.2% to 69.9% .The plant height,number of shoots,number of leaves,blade width,petiole diameter,spadix length and number of flowers were highly variable,while the plant width and spadix diameter had small variation.Eleven descriptive traits could be divided into 2~4 grades according to the observed characteristics.And the Shannon-Wiener indices of 11 descriptive traits ranged from 0.20 to 1.01,among which the Shannon-Wiener indices of leaf shape were the highest,whereas that of perianth separation and perianth color were the lowest.The hierarchical cluster analysis tree of 27 traits supported that when the euclidean dis-tance was 3,they could be divided into two groups:Group A and Group B.The result of Pearson correlation analysis revealed that the correlation coefficient between 27 traits ranged from ‒0.72 to 0.91.In Group A,most of the traits were significantly correlated with each other,and the correlation coefficients between bud length and bud width,bud length and inflorescence length were 0.91.In Group B,most of the traits pairs were not significantly correlated.Both hierar-chical cluster analysis and principal component analysis supported that the 20 Spathiphyllum germplasm resources could be divided into 2 Groups(Group Ⅰ and Group Ⅱ)based on data of 27 traits.Group Ⅰ contained 7 accessions including S.cannifolium,S.ortgiesii,S.Clevelandii,S.Bright,S.Princess,S.Middle Flower and S.Sensation,and they were taller and had larger leaves,larger spathes,and larger spadixes.Group Ⅱ was consisted of S.floribundum,S.Coddy Color,S.Water Grass,S.Parrish,S.Mini,S.Vicki Lynn,S.Mojo,S.Tyler Green,S.Crisis,S.Sweet Chico,S.Sweet Claudio,S.Dark Green and S.Sunshine Dream.And the 13 accessions of Group II had more buds and leaves,and were smaller and more compact.The research results could provide a reference for evaluation and breeding of Spathiphyllum germplasm resources.