Geographic variation of morphological characters among cultivated types of perilla crop and their weedy types in Korea and China

In this study, we detected the morphological variation of 83 Perilla accessions from Korea and China by observing the measurements of seven quantitative and eight qualitative characters. Most accessions of cultivated var. frutescens from Southern China showed higher plant height than accessions from Korea and Northern China. The accessions of cultivated var. frutescens from Southern China have a relatively late flowering time, while there were three types of accessions for cultivated var. frutescens from Korea and Northern China: early-maturity, middle-maturity, and late-maturity. These results indicate that latitude with geographical distribution may be an essential factor affecting the flowering time in Perilla species in East Asia. In principal components analyses (PCAs), four quantitative traits and five qualitative characters contributed in the positive direction on the first axis. The accessions of cultivated var. frutescens were clearly separated from accessions of cultivated and weedy types of var. crispa in the PCAs, while the accessions of cultivated and weedy types of var. crispa revealed no separation. In addition, most accessions of weedy type of var. frutescens were not clearly separated with the accessions of cultivated and weedy types of var. crispa. In this study, we have provided the information regarding the morphological variation of accessions of two cultivated types of Perilla crop and their weedy types from Korea and China. The findings provide further insight into the morphological variations and differentiation of Perilla accessions with different geographical distributions in Korea and China.