NUMERICAL TAXONOMY OF PORTUGUESE TRONCHUDA CABBAGE AND GALEGA KALE LANDRACES USING MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS

A morphological study was carried out to determine the relationships a mong Portuguese cole landraces using 58 accessions belonging to: (i) P ortuguese Tronchuda cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. tronchuda Bailey s yn. var. costata De Candolle, Couve Tronchuda); (ii) Portuguese Galega kale (B. oleracea var. acephala De Candolle, Couve Galega); and (iii) other economically less important coles such as Algarve cabbages (B. oleracea var. capitata L., Couve do Algarve or B. oleracea var. sabaud a L., Couve Repolho-lombarda do Algarve). The cole accessions were col lected from the growers, studied under field conditions during two con secutive years, and characterized using 46 morphological characters fr om seedling stage to ripe silique. Morphological data were analysed by numerical taxonomy techniques using UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Meth od Using Arithmetic Averages) and by principal component analysis (PCA ). Phenograms based on correlation and distance coefficients showed th e existence of 8 main groups (A-H). Five of these groups correspond to Tronchuda cabbage landraces: (A) ''Couves de Tras-os-Montes''; (B) '' Couves do Minho''; (C) ''Couves from Central Portugal''; (D) ''Couve P ortuguesa''; (E) ''Couves from Southern inland Portugal''. The three o ther groups correspond to: (F) cabbages; (G) miscellaneous coles; and (H) Galega kales. Landrace groups are primarily associated with morpho logical differences among accessions and secondly with accession geogr aphical origin. The interannual character variation did not affect the clustering patterns of the accessions and therefore the stability of landrace classification. PCA was congruent with the landrace groups de fined by the phenograms and gave supplementary information on the usef ulness of the characters for the definition of the various groups.