We observed the pollen grains and fruits of six Isodon taxa distributed in Korea using a light microscope and a scanning electron microscope. The muri thickness on the surface of the pollen grains distinguishes Isodon serra from other taxa: the thickness of I. serra is ca. 0.6 μm, while the thicknesses of other taxa are 0.37~0.49 μm. I. inflexus var. canescens has a relatively nutlet small (about 0.93×0.83 mm) compared to other Korean Isodon taxa (about 1.15~1.37×1.02~1.17 mm). Characteristically, a nutlet of I. inflexus var. microphyllus has non-glandular hairs distributed all over its surface. However, I. serra has non-glandular hairs distributed only on the top of the nutlet while it has glandular hairs broadly distributed over the entire nutlet. We suggested that these characters of the pollen and fruit surfaces can be included in the key to Korean Isodon as diagnostic characters to distinguish the above taxa from other Korean taxa.

High-quality and high-phytonutrient watermelon fruits have strong market opportunities besides their health related benefits. Hence, investigating quality and nutritional related traits of watermelon genetic resources could provide important baseline data in breeding for increased lycopene content thereby increasing the marketability of watermelon. To this end, we have examined some fruit morphological traits and lycopene content of 105 genetic resources. Seeds, originally obtained from 22+ countries, were obtained from the National Agrobiodiversity Center, Jeonju, South Korea, grown in an experimental field and harvested at a fully mature stage. The size of pistil scar (SPS), the width of stripes (WS), weight of fruit (WF), length of fruit (LF), width of fruit (WIF), the thickness of pericarp (TP), soluble solids content (SSC), fruit shape in longitudinal section, ground color of skin, the intensity of the green color of skin, fruit shape at the apical part, grooving distribution, conspicuousness of stripes, and main color of the flesh were recorded on the field and inside laboratory and the lycopene was measured using spectrophotometric and HPLC methods. Watermelon fruits have shown a diverse morphological characters. Red and pink fleshed fruits dominated in the entire collections. Fruits with higher thickness of rind were found to exhibit less soluble solid content (SSC). Korean origin fruits were characterized by intermediate SSC while the United States of America (USA), Russia (RUS), Tajikistan (TJK), Turkmenistan (TKM), Taiwan (TWN), and Uruguay (URY) originated fruits had the highest SSC. The lycopene content varied between 41.37 and 182.82 ㎍/g, 2.81 and 163.72 ㎍/g, and 3.54 and 255.47 ㎍/g using HPLC, UV-Vis spectrophotometer, and microplate reader spectrophotometer, respectively. Red- and pink-fleshed fruits had the highest levels of lycopene content compared to the yellow- and orange-fleshed. Lycopene content had a significant positive correlation with SSC, however, no correlations were detected between lycopene and other quantitative fruit morphological characters. Our study demonstrated high diversity exists in fruit morphological traits and lycopene content of the germplasm collections which provide beneficial baseline data for a future breeding program and utilization of watermelon germplasm collections in gene banks for the maintenance and improvement of the current levels of production, marketability, and health-related benefit of watermelon fruits.

Background : This text was conducted to investigate the fruit type of Camellia japonica in ko rea. Methods and Results : In fruit of Camellia japonica, For fruit length of 24.1～33.0mm was 6 3.7%, and width of 30.1～39.0mm was 60.2%, and weight of 10.1～25.0g was 62.1%. Fruit was near in circle shape, because length/width ratio 0.71～1.00 indicate 79.6%. Seed number of per fruit by weight was also tends to be which is much as fruit is heavy. In correlation b etween each of fruit character, Fruit width showed a positive correlation with the fruit length, fruit weight, seed number. Also, for seed number, the correlation coefficient is the fruit weigh t (0.643**), fruit width (0.640**) was significantly more than the length (0.532**). Conclusions : Camellia japonica was very various size, shape of fruit and seed number of per fruit.