ELECTROPHORETIC STUDIES OF SEED PROTEINS IN RELATION TO CHROMOSOMAL CRITERIA AND THE RELATIONSHIPS OF SOME TAXA OF TRIFOLIUM

Electrophoretic seed protein patterns of 30 samples belonging to 20 sp ecies and four sections of Trifolium, treated by numerical analysis, a s well as karyotype data for the same samples, are discussed in the li ght of current sectional and subsectional delimitation. The grouping o f taxa in T. sect. Mistyllus and sect. Vesicaria, both with a basic ch romosome number of x = 8, agree with their previous sectional delimita tion based on morphological characters, and with chromosomal features such as karyotype symmetry. In T. sect. Trifolium five samples represe nting four species (three with x = 7) were grouped together, whereas T . rubens (x = 8) of the same section was found most similar to some sp ecies of T. sect. Lotoidea. In the latter section, the grouping of a n umber of species was anomalous as exemplified by the low levels of sim ilarity between species of T. subsect. Platystylium among which T. tem bense showed closer affinity to the species in T. sect. Mistylius. T. sect. Lotoidea appears as a heterogeneous group in which species relat ionship requires reconsideration.