BIOCHEMICAL-GENETIC VARIATION IN 4 WILD POPULATIONS OF ASPALATHUS-LINEARIS (ROOIBOS TEA)

Four morphologically different populations of Aspalathus linearis were examined by horizontal starch gel electrophoresis to assess levels an d patterns of genetic variation and to estimate the amount of genetic differentiation within and between populations. Leaf extracts were sur veyed for 13 enzymes, and gene products revealed genetic variation at six (40%) of 15 protein coding loci. The percentages of polymorphic lo ci range from 6.67 to 26.67% (0.95 criterion), values of 1.07-1.40 wer e obtained for the mean number of alleles per locus, and average heter ozygosities per locus were calculated at 0.016-0.096. The mean genotyp ic distance index (Nei, 1978) between populations was 0.034. Enzyme el ectrophoresis appears to be a suitable method for studying genetic var iation in A. linearis.