Morphological Characterization of Desmodium dichotomum GermplasmCollected from Eastern Amhara (Ethiopia)

This study was conducted in 2019‒2020 to morphologically characterize and cluster26 germplasm entries of bouffordia dichotoma, the native legume collected in eastern amhara(ethiopia) for eventual selection of promising lines as forage crops. the ibpgr descriptors listwere used for characterization of the entries and data were analyzed using r software. clusteranalysis was conducted to understand the genetic diversity within the collection and to groupsimilar entries. the experimental design consisted of completely randomized blocks with threereplications for one year. the resulting dendrogram showed 3 distinct groups of entries: group 1with 12 entries; group 2 with 6 entries; and group 3 with 8 entries. group 1 was significantlydifferent (p<0.05) from groups 2 and 3 in terms of days to first flower, terminal leaflet length,terminal leaflet petiole length, length of inflorescence and plant height, as well as emergence,establishment, vigor, flowering and maturity. leaf color of groups 1 and 2 was light green whilethat of group 3 was green. while most entries had semi-erect growth habit, those in group 3were prostrate or trailing. three distinct types of seed coat colors were observed with group 1including dark brown, light brown and yellow, while groups 2 and 3 were yellow only.