Anatomical Variations in Radiation Induced Jute Mutants

Eight different anatomical criteria, namely, number of layers, length and breadth of fibre bundle, number of fibre cells per bundle, length and breadth of fibre cell, lumen size and fibre wall thickness, were studied in 38 radiation induced mutants of Corchorus olitorius cv. JRO 632. Thirty four of these mutants exhibited significant variation from the controls for one or more of the criteria studied. Alterations pertaining to the individual fibre cell characters were significantly lower than those affecting the fibre bundle characters. The criteria showing the maximum variability were number of layers number of cells per bndle and fibre wall thickness. In general mutants with drastic morphological changes exhibited variability for larger number of anatomical criteria.