Published in Scientific Papers. Series A. Agronomy, Vol. LXVI, Issue 2
Written by Rodica BEICU, Sorina POPESCU, Florin IMBREA, Giancarla VELICEVICI, Alina NEACȘU, Georgeta POP, Liana BUTTA, Ilinca IMBREA
The paper aimed to analyse the morphological characters for eight spontaneous populations of thyme, including an endemic population (Thymus comosus), collected from different regions of the Banat area. Both interpopulation and intrapopulation variability determinations were pursued, and results were correlated with statistical interpretations. Morphological analyses were carried out, including the shape of the leaves, as this morphological character is decisive in the taxonomy of the genus Thymus. Based on morphological similarity, the analysed populations were hierarchically classified, by the cluster mean method, in two main clusters. In the first cluster, six of the eight analysed populations were grouped, respectively those belonging to the species Th. praecox (with the two subspecies janke and polytrychus) and Th. dacicus. In the second cluster we find the endemic population of Th. comosus and the population of Th. pulegioides, which are 97.51% morphologically similar, but different from the populations found in the first cluster. The obtained data allowed the quantification of the associative relationships between the morphological parameters studied.
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