MSc.

Heliconias are one of the important cut flowers of tropics and versatile landscape plants due to their variation in the growth habit and flower characters. The objective of study was to assess the extent of variability among open pollinated seedlings collected from 15 different species and varieties.
There was wide variation in the seed characters, germination characters, and morphological characters such as plant height, shoot girth and leaf morphology, leaf area, suckering habit. Also variation in physiological characters such as chlorophyll content, leaf sheath colour of the seedlings was observed.
The species Heliconia mariae which registered lowest seed weight was observed to have highest value of plant height. Similarly Heliconia longa which recorded minimum value for seed weight developed in to taller plants. The varieties with smaller seed weight recorded higher germination percent as compared to varieties with higher seed weight.
The species Heliconia mariae which recorded the highest plant height, also recorded higher values for leaf length, leaf width and leaf area. The variety Heliconia bihai var. ‘Granda’ registered the lowest plant height, also recorded higher values for leaf length, leaf width and leaf area during the whole observation period. The variety Heliconia latispatha var. ‘Orange Gyro’ recorded highest leaf length: width ratio of 3:1. Among the species and varieties Heliconia bihai var. ‘Granda’ registered the highest number of leaves.
Among other leaf characters leaf base was found to have more variation. In species and varieties utilized for study ‘oblique’, ‘cordate’, ‘cuneate’ and ‘obtuse’ type of leaf bases were observed.
In heliconia most of the species have distinctive leaf sheath colour pattern. Also presence of powdery coating on back surface of leaves was observed in Heliconia mariae, Heliconia curtispatha, Heliconia pogonantha var. ‘Pogonantha’ and Heliconia longa. The species and varieties showed significant difference in leaf midrib colour. These characters might be identifying feature in some of the varieties. Variation in pigment content was also observed among the species and varieties utilized for study.
The variability was high both at phenotypic and genotypic level for most of the characters. PCV was slightly higher than GCV in most of the characters studied. High phenotypic (58.7 %) and genotypic (45.42 %), coefficient of variation was found for number of suckers. High heritability along with high genetic advance was observed for seed weight (heritability 98.05 %, GA 71.72%) and leaf area (heritability 99.96 %, GA 62.95%). The low heritability was recorded for percent of germination and pigment content. The character percentage of germination was found to have significant positive correlation at genotypic and phenotypic level with plant height, rate of shoot elongation, leaf length, leaf width and leaf area.
Fourteen species and varieties of heliconia were subjected to D2 analysis based on eight characters. They were grouped into five clusters on the basis of relative magnitude of D2 values. The greater the distance between two clusters, greater is the divergence between the accessions belonging to the two clusters and vice versa. The maximum number of genotypes (5) were included in cluster I, followed by 4 genotypes in cluster II. Three genotypes were included in cluster III. Cluster IV and Cluster V consisted of only one genotype each.
Using eucedian distance measures dendrogram was constructed to represent inter and intra specific relationships among the species and varieties. Clustering showed slightly different grouping than grouping by D2 analysis. On drawing a vertical line in the dendrogram along the point corresponding to the similarity coefficient value of 110.12, the 14 species and varieties got divided in to five clusters. The varieties Heliconia lingulata var. ‘Red tip fan’, Heliconia pogonantha var. ‘Pogonantha’ and species Heliconia curtispatha, Heliconia bourgaeana formed the largest cluster. The variety Heliconia bihai var. ‘Granda’ formed separate cluster as like in D2 analysis.