Abstract
IN a previous communication1, the occurrence of prochromosomes and of size differentiation in the chromosomes of Rhinanthus minor Ehrh. were described. Further work has led to the conclusion that the small chromosomes are constant in occurrence and number in Rhinanthus minor Ehrh., and that the basic number for the genus Rhinanthus is probably x = 11. This is the same basic number as the related genus Euphrasia, which also possesses a prochromosomal resting nucleus. No evidence of any size differentiation in the chromosome complement of Euphrasia exists (P. Yeo, private communication). Other members of the Rhinanthus minor aggregate, including R. borealis (Sterneck) Marshall, and dwarf plants like R. perrieri Chabert (with fuscous spotted corollas) from Shetland, have been found to possess the chromosome number 2n = 22. Fourteen large chromosomes and a number not yet determined of smaller chromosomes have been observed in R. calcareus Wilmott and R. stenophyllus (Schur.) Druce. Continental R. major Ehrh. has been found to possess chromosomes similar in number and size differentiation to those of the R. minor aggregate shown in Fig. 1. Fagerlind2, in 1936, described the eight smaller chromosomes in the diploid complement of Alectorolopus (Rhinanthus) major, and gave the chromosome number as n = 11 for this species.
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References
Hambler, D. J., Nature, 172 (1953).
Fagerlind, F., Hereditas, 22 (1936).
Clapham, Tutin and Warburg, “Flora of the British Isles” (1952).
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HAMBLER, D. Cytology of the Scrophulariaceae and Orobanchaceae. Nature 174, 838 (1954). https://doi.org/10.1038/174838a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/174838a0
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