A KARYOSYSTEMATIC INVESTIGATION IN THE GRAMINEAE

Abstract

The history and the present state of the classification of the Gramineae are briefly reviewed and a number of the different characteristics on which phylogenetic systems have been based are considered. The subjects of chromosome morphology and the application of idiograms and karyotypes to taxonomic studies are discussed. Avdulov's recently reported findings on the phylogeny of the grasses are summarized and compared with the results of other workers and those obtained in the present investigation. Three species of bamboos were studied for the first time and evidence secured to indicate that the basic number of the tribe is probably not 12 as has been elsewhere reported. In the Festuceae the chromosome number of Phragmites communis Trin. was definitely ascertained, confirming Avdulov's supposition that the basic number for the genus is 12. The other three species investigated agreed with the arrangement as proposed by Avdulov. The tribe Chlorideae, with the exception of the genus Beckmannia, has been reported to be almost entirely Panicoid with respect to chromosome morphology. This was confirmed in the four species examined. Avdulov's rearrangement of the tribe Hordeae was somewhat altered and a confusion m the nomenclature of the genus Lepturus was corrected. An anomalous situation was cleared up in the tribe Agrostideae by the establishment of the chromosome number of Sporobolus tennuissinus Kuntz as 40. The specimen of Anthoxanthum odoratum L. (tribe Phalarideae) examined provided a very interesting example of secondary splitting in somatic chromosomes. One species was examined in the tribe Melinideae and six in the tribe Paniceae. In the latter tribe no difference could be detected between the several subdivisions of the genus Panicum. The same condition held for the large genus Andropogon in the tribe Andropogoneae. In the tribe Maydeae the chromosome number of Tripsacum dactyloides L. was found to be 9, and the suggestion was made that it may be a link, along with the genus Coix, between the Andropogoneae and the Maydeae. The other four species examined all had a basic number of 10.