EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES IN PONDEROSA PINE. I. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VARIATION IN PROTEINS AND MORPHOLOGY

Ponderosa pine from California (Pinus ponderosa var. ponderosa) were crossed to one another and also to individuals from the Rocky Mountains (P. p. var. scopulorum). All crosses involved a single mother and a single pollen donor. Patterns of inheritance of electrophoretically-detectable loci followed Mendelian expectations with one exception. Shikimate dehydrogenase showed unpredictable banding patterns in intervarietal crosses. Variability at these biochemical loci was compared to variability at 14 morphometric characters. The relationship between these two levels of variation is complex and permits only one generalization: variability at one level is not a good predictor of variability at the other level.