The order of occurrence of vegetative and reproductive nodes on the basal primary branch (nensp;+ensp;1) of 100 germ-plasm accessions ofArachis hypogaeaL. ssp.hypogaeavar.hypogaeabelonging to the Virginia runner group was studied. The node sequence started with vegetative nodes in all the 210 plants of 16 accessions, but in the remaining 84 there was variation within and between accessions. Since there was no uniformity, the total plant population of all 100 accessions was pooled. In general, the first node was predominantly vegetative in the population (about 81.5 plants). In the two-order sequence, the pattern starting with vegetative nodes followed by reproductives was classified into six classes and in the reproductive followed by vegetative category, there were five classes; the node numbers in both ranged from three to five. The order 1 vegetative + 2 reproductive was more predominant (50 plants). In the three-order sequence, there were 13 classes in the vegetative + reproductive + vegetative sequence and 10 classes in the reproductive + vegetative + reproductive sequence with node numbers ranging from four to seven in both. In the former, 1 vegetative + 2 reproductive + 2 vegetative and 1 vegetative + 2 reproductive + 1 vegetative sequences were more frequent (29.2 and 20.2 plants, respectively). It was concluded that wide variation in vegetative and reproductive node numbers and their sequence in the varietal collection of Virginia runner peanuts might have developed in nature as a result of genetic introgression and, thus, may not be considered a dependable attribute in the classification of cultivated peanuts.
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