Studies on Sexual Variation in Clones of <I>Casuarina equisetifolia</I> forst

Abstract

Flowering pattern in sex identified clones of Casuarina equisetifolia Forst. Grown as hedges in the clone bank of Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding, Coimbatore, India revealed that sex change occurs in this species. The population assembled and rooted ramets from three year old trees selected from Chengalpet and Chidambaram area of Tamil Nadu, India consisted of constant males, constant females and monoecious individuals at the time of introduction during 1992 and remained so till 1997. The data on flowering collected afterwards showed tbat constant males, constant females and monoeciouis individuals accounted for 59, 26 and 4 per cent of the population respectively. Six clones (11% of the population) changed their sex in various ways and became inconstant individuals. Studies on protein profiles undertaken during flowering and non-flowering seasons envisaged that the constants and in constants differed remarkably with respect to their protein levels. Continuous hedging may bring out plasticity of sex expression in a small per cent of population.