Cyto-Palynological Diversity and Seed Storage Protein Variations in Some Species of Medicinal Plant Bauhinia

To trace the interrelationships and for identification and characterisation of diversity among three species of medicinally important plant Bauhinia viz. B. acuminata B. purpurea and B. racemosa, belonging to subfamily Caesalpiniaceae, cytological study with respect to chromosome number, somatic chromosome length of component arms of chromosome, T. F% and chromosome type and seed protein variation were investigated. Results showed that the three species have chromosome number 2n=28, the value of the total chromatin lengths was lowest (53.48μ) in B. racemosa and highest (57.32μ) in B. purpurea while in B. acuminata this value was 56.78μ suggesting a close relationship between B.purpurea and B. acuminata. The T.F% values of B. acuminata and B. purpurea stand close to each other. Apertural status and shape of pollen grains of the selected Bauhinia species appear to be almost exactly similar to each other. In terms of apertural type, quite uniformaly all the species are 3-colporate. B. purpurea and B. acuminata was found to be tricolporate and prolatespheroidal while B. racemosa was found to be tricolporate and sub prolate. Beside the common bands among the studied taxa, 7.37 kDa, 31.85 kDa and 261.143 kDa protein were found common in all the three species. Maximum genetic affinities were observed between B. acuminata x B. purpurea, while minimum between B. acuminata and B. racemosa. On the molecular level, the present study gave the results with wide variations in their band numbers. Maximum number of protein bands (12 bands) was observed in B. racemosa, while minimum (7 bands) in B. purpurea.