Some morphometric, anatomical and biochemical characteristics of fruits and seeds of Onobrychis spp. in Italy

The fruits, seed coats and seed storage proteins of Onobrychis arenaria, O. montana, O. viciifolia, O. alba, O. supina and O. caput-galli were studied to examine the variability between and within species. The morphometric characteristics of the fruit had a high intraspecific variability which often exceeded that between species. Only the fruit of O. caput-galli had values for length, width, thickness and number of thorns which were almost always higher than those of the other species. The anatomical characteristics of the seed coats were extremely variable. The highest values of seed coat thickness were recorded in the diploid species. The palisade-like layer (or Malpighian cells) in O. caput-galli differed in size and morphology from that of the other species. The electrophoretic analysis revealed that the number and position of storage proteins varied between and within species.