NUMERICAL TAXONOMY ON VARIETIES OF ADANSONIA DIGITATA L.

Variations in the morphological features of Adansonia digitata L. were studied, which may be used for the delimitation of varieties in the species. The wide range of uses of these naturalised trees in the world have in recent time witnessed increasing demand of their foliar, bark, root, fruit and seed products in nutritional, fibre and medical applications. The upsurge demand for these products needs to be balanced with new varieties of improved performance to meet the supply chain. To achieve this, the present study was aimed at setting the foundation of variability analysis based on morphological features to detect promising varieties for mapping out of future breeding schemes of this multi-purpose tree. The fresh specimens were collected in open vegetation, plantations, houses and bushy areas from mature plant stands in Sudan and Guinea savannah of Nigeria. Both qualitative and quantitative characters studied, coded and subjected to cluster analysis. Some morphological characters indicated close affinity amongst the varieties of A. digitata. Features of taxonomic importance amongst the varieties of A. digitata include leaf surface, pod surface, leaf stalk surface, pod surface, pod end form, pod colour, pod size, stalk size, number of seed per pod, leaf size, seed size, occurrence of leaflet number and leaflet size. Within the species, there is evidence indicating the existence of a number of local types differing in habit, vigour, size, and quality of the fruits and vitamin content. These features were considered to be taxonomically relevant in the delimitation of these varieties. Numerical analysis of the qualitative and quantitative characters data using cluster analysis – average linkage, single linkage, complete linkage and centroid methods delimit all the Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) into four varieties hence, infraspecific classification of A. digitata is hereby proposed.