GENETIC DIVERSITY IN SOME NATURAL-POPULAT IONS OF M-CILIARIS (L) KROCK AND M-INTERTEXTA (L) MILL-I ANALYSIS OF MORPHOLOGICAL VARIABILITY

Genetic diversity was studied in 11 populations naturelles de Medicago annuelles, origin northern Tunisia: 8 populations of M ciliaris and 3 populations of M intertexta. Twenty morphological characters, related to vegetative and reproductive development of plants cultivated in co ntrolled conditions, were studied. Canonical discriminant analysis and Mahalanobis's distance showed an important variability within and bet ween populations, and a net separation between population groups of th e 2 species. However, one population of M intertexta seems to present morphological similarity with M ciliaris. This particular situation su ggests the possibility of introgressive hybridization between these 2 taxa.