Preliminary study on morphological variation and types of Elytrigia repens germplasm resources

The 16 morphological variations and their distribution rules of 41 accessions of Elytrigia repens were studied, and the cluster analysis of 34 materials was carried out based on correlation analysis and principal component analysis of 16 morphological indexes. The result showed that the variations of the morphological indexes were great within species, and the coefficient of variation was 4.88%-33.30%. The coefficient of variation of leave level height was 33.30% and ranked the first, followed by length of flag leaf (26.03%), and the variation of seed length, seed width, seed thickness, glumes length and leaf length were low, the coefficient of variation was under 10.0%. There was significant positive correlation between the height of reproduction branch and the altitude（P0.01）, and there was significant negative correlation between the length of glumes and the altitude（P0.01）, but the correlation between the latitude and reproduction branch, latitude and the length of glumes was on the contrary. There was significant positive correlation between the first internodes length below spikelet and the longitude（P0.01）. Based on correlation analysis and principal component analysis of morphological characters, at the point of euclidean distance 5.0, 34 materials of E.repens could be divided into 4 morphological types including high type, partial high type, special type and dwarf type by cluster analysis, and the special and dwarf types had potential of turf use.