THESIS

were collected in Laos, while S. mammosum originated from Malaysia. The three
species showed homogeneous of the ratio traits in morphological characters especially
in fruit shape. This included the cotyledon leaf width, cotyledon leaf length and width
ratio, leaf blade width and 100 seeds weight.
Cluster I and IV include S. indicum; six of accessions S. indicum belong to
cluster I collected from Laos (85.71 %), while one accession belongs to cluster IV
originated from Thailand (14.29 %). This resulted in the same species but different
ratio scale traits and could be seperated. For example the unique of S. indicum in
cluster IV is characterized by being the smallest plant breadth (49.00 cm) while S.
indicum in cluster I is characterized by being the biggest plant breadth (97.17 cm).
Moreover, S. sanitwongsei, the only one accession collected in Thailand,
belongs to cluster III. Its morphological was similar to S. indicum collected in Laos
(Figure 6).
Cluster V includes 17 accessions of S. ferox and is the second largest group
(approximately 24.64 %) of the variation found in Southeast Asia, where the major
part (approximately 47.06 %) of the variation occur in Thailand, Laos and Malaysia,
approximately 35.29 and 17.65 %, respectively. Therefore, the distribution center of S.
ferox is located in Thailand and Laos due to the fact that this species is consumed in
Thailand and Laos but not in Malaysia.
Three accessions of S. trilobatum collected in Thailand belong to cluster VI
and VII. Based on the ratio scale traits, two accessions in cluster VI, it is unique in its
lowest number of primary branches per plant (9) and the smallest leaf leaf blade width
(10.38 cm). Furthermore, it has the highest 100 seed weight (0.39 g), on the average.
Compared to cluster VII, the one accession displayed the rest as it obtained the
shortest fruit length and fruit width corresponds to 0.88 and 0.89 cm, respectively.
Also, it has the smallest fruit stalk thickness (1.95 mm). Furthermore, it has the
maximum cotyledon leaf length to width ratio.
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