Abstract
A total of 541 strains belonging to 21 Oryza species were observed for leaf-blade isozymes of peroxidase and acid phosphatase, and 147 of them belonging to O. perennis and O. sativa for esterase isozymes in addition. The species markedly differed in zymogram variability. Widely distributed wild species generally had a large number of various zymograms, while localized wild species as well as cultivated ones showed limited variation. Though certain species had zymograms peculiar to them, identification of species by zymogram seemed to be difficult on account of wide variations within the species. The data were treated by the technique of pattern analysis to obtain an integrated picture. In the scatter diagrams obtained, closely related species were placed near one another but the distribution areas of their strains overlapped, suggesting that genes specifying the isozymes might be commonly distributed among different species. In both peroxidase and acid phosphatase, the cultivated species, sativa and glaberrima, had no zymograms of their own, as their zymograms, two for each, were present among those of their respective wild progenitors, Asian perennis and breviligulata. The two zymograms of sativa varieties represented the Indica and Japonica types, respectively. However, sativa varieties showed 19 different zymograms of esterase, the Indica and Japonica types differing in the frequencies of those peculiar to sativa.
