Morphometric study of accessions of Sesamum indicum L. collected from Nigeria

Sesamum (Sesamum indicum L.), is a very beneficial plant with manifold implementation in human life hence the identification of different species on the basis of morphological basis is indeed a need especially in less developed parts of the world. Morphometric studies of 12 accessions were carried out in order to find out characters which may be used for the delimitation of the accessions. Both quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the leaves, stems, flowers, stipule, node, fruit pods and growth type were studied and coded. Numerical analysis of these character data using cluster analysis – average linkage, single linkage, complete linkage and centroid method delimit the 12 accessions into five cluster groups which conform to the results of the morphological analysis. The results of these morphological variability analyses may set the foundation to detect promising accessions for mapping out future breeding schemes and also will be helpful for other researchers working on other aspects such as medicinal or nutritive consumption of different accessions of this multi-purpose crop.   Key words: Morphology, Sesamum indicum, accessions, taxonomy.