Cytogenetics and Evolution of Karyotype in Wormwood, Artemisia vulgaris L

In order to analyze karyotype of wormwood (Artemisia vulgaris L.), plants and achene's specimens were collected from different ecological regions of East Azarbaijan. Root tip meristems obtained from germinated achene's were pretreated with saturated solution of ?-bromonaphthalene, fixed in Lewitsky solution and stained in aceto-iron- hematoxylin. Ten metaphase plates were used to analyze karyotype parameters. C-banding was carried out according to conventional methods. The karyotype of A. vulgaris consisted of 2n=16 chromosomes. Size of chromosomes changed from 7.13±0.19 ? (the largest chromosome) to 4.54±0.11 ? (the smallest chromosome). All of them were metacentrics except the chromosome 6, which was subtelocentric with arm ratio = 3.33. Pairs 3 and 4 were satellite chromosomes. Size of satellites was 0.58 and 0.38 ? respectively. In one of investigated plants, telomeric fusion of two chromosomes was observed so that these joined chromosomes were found in all of cells in the slide at the metaphase and prophase stages. It is thought that basic number of chromosomes x=8 by this mean was originated from x=9 in evolution of genus Artemisia. In some plants B-chromosomes significantly smaller than somatic chromosomes were found. Several plants had only one B-chromosome which usually was met centric. Others had two B-chromosomes areocentric. Giemsa C-banding detected heterochromatin distribution in centromeric regions of all chromosomes.