Analysis on morphologic variation of Medicago sativa in Tianzhu

Phenotype variation for 14 morphologic traits of 15 Medicago sativa accessions were analyzed. The results showed that there were extensive variations in morphology. The most significant variance lay in branch number (32.58%), followed by pod length (27.21%), and floret length (10.47%) was the least. Mean while, coefficient of variation and principal component analysis showed that five characters including branch number, pod length, lateral branch number, panicle length and pod number were main factors which produced morphological variation of M.sativa. Based on the morphological traits, cluster analysis showed that all 15 accessions of M.sativa had been divided into two parts.