MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE GROUNDCOVER SELLIERA RADICANS COLLECTED IN CHILE IN DIFFERENT LATITUDES

Selliera radicans Cav. has several interesting features for use in ornamental horticulture mainly as a lawn, around pools or wetlands, and as an alternative in green roofs and vertical gardens. It tolerates light frosts, flooding, and saline water. As a lawn it does not require to be mowed due to its growth habit, since it does not go over 5 cm in height. It is a perennial plant with creeping stems which hold adventitious roots in the nodes. Leaves are succulent, alternate, dark to yellowish green, shiny and up to 4 cm in length. The upper part of the flowers is white with blue or pink lines. Flowers are solitary, zygomorphic and have 5 petals. This species belongs to the Goodeniaceae family and is native to Australia, New Zealand and Chile. In Chile it is found in wet areas in contact with the sea. In search of morphologic variability, plants were collected from 9 different places along latitudes 27°59’S to 42°40’S and planted in Talca. Onenode stolon pieces were taken from the plants were planted in different containers. The new growth was characterized by describing and measuring the foliage (leaf blade shape, width, length and thickness), stolon (internode length and stolon thickness), inflorescence (petal number, corolla angle and flower diameter), fruits (number of seeds per fruit), and flowering period. A statistical analysis was carried out to detect differences among accessions.