Karyomorphological and heterochromatin similarities among fourVigna species

Summary Karyomorphological similarities among four species of the genusVigna, V. unguiculata, V. luteola, V. oblongifolia andV. vexillata, were evaluated. Two different approaches were followed: cytomorphometrical determinations, carried out with an automated image analysis system to improve resolution, yielded some karyotypical indices; the distribution of heterochromatin bands was interpreted using a recently reported algorithm. Both methods led to similar results: the most karyologically similar species toV. unguiculata appears to beV. luteola, whileV. oblongifolia appears to be the least related one.