Morphology and embryology of Asparagus virgatus Baker

Abstract

This is an account of the morphology, cytoembryology, structure of fruit and seed of Asparagus virgatus Baker, which is an exotic species seldom described in Indian floras. The plants are perennial, unarmed herbs with erect shoots and ascending cladodes. Twenty to thirty adventitious cylindrical roots arise from the underground perennial rhizome. The flowers are bisexual. The stigma is capitate. Fruit-setting is rare. The development of female gametophyte conforms to the eight-nucleate Polygonum-type. About 32% of the pollen is sterile. The haploid number of chromosomes is twenty (n=20), being recorded in this species for the first time. The same number occurs in A. tenuifolius and in a local variety of A. racemosus. The basic number for the genus is supposed to be five, many species having n=10 chromosomes.