Morphological characterization of certain garden tea clones from Upper Assam

Abstract

The present investigation attempts to characterize 14 estate clones cultivated in the tea estates of upper Assam on the basis ofmorphological characters by using various physical and dimensional methods and morphological descriptor, as per the recommendations of International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome, Italy. In the study, notable variations were observed in young shoot weight, young shoot pubescence, leaf size, leaf pose, stigma position, splitting of style and pollen viability. The correlation similarity coefficient matrix value utilizing physical and morphological characters has been found to range from 0.998 to 0.265 indicating a high degree of variation among the studied materials. The results may be used in the development of new clones as well as in future breeding programme.