Characterization of underutilized medicinal plant Canna indica L. accessions using DUS descriptors Baranidharan R.1,*, Lourdusamy D. Keisar1, Mangaiyarkarasi R.2, Rajamani K.3, Chandrakumar K.4, Karthikeyan S.5, Vaganan M. Mayil6 1Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, HC & RI, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India 2Department of Horticulture, School of Agricultural Sciences, Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan University, Tiruchirapalli 3Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, HC & RI, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India 4Department of Renewable Energy Engineering, AEC&RI, TNAU, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India 5Center for Post-Harvest Technology, TNAU, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India 6Department of Plant Biochemistry, Crop Production Section ICAR-NRCB, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India *Corresponding author e-mail: arunbarani72@gmail.com
Online published on 26 December, 2023. Abstract Canna lily, a commercially important crop with high nutraceutical and pharmaceutical value, were characterized for 41 traits using DUS scale scores. Several plant characteristics, including plant height, leaf lamina length, leaf lamina width, as well as colour pigmentation and collar girth of pseudostem, were taken into consideration as morphological parameters for selection of adoptable accessions (Ac.1, Ac.2, Ac.3, Ac.4, Ac.6, Ac.8, Ac.9, Ac.10, and Ac.12) to local conditions. Initial pigmentation of the leaf lamina, which disappears during the later stages of maturation, and early pigmentation of the growing stalk of a new sprout were the distinguishing traits prevalent more in all accessions. Early blooming was found to be a unique indicator of the accession (Ac.1). These accessions can act as morphological markers for accession identification. Top Keywords Canna lily, DUS, Pseudostem, Leaf lamina, Medicinal plant, Flower, Rhizome. Top |