Garlic-like but odorless plant Allium ampeloprasum 'Mushuu- ninniku'

Abstract

We tried to identify the unidentified Allium plant, 'Mushuu-ninniku', which resembles garlic (A. sativum L.) but has no garlic odor. 'Mushuu-ninniku' is much larger than a garlic. Its plant height and bulb weight are twice that of garlic. It develops many different sized cloves, inflorescences, and flowers, but no inflorescent bulbil. The chromosome number of 'Mushuuninniku' is 2n=32, similar to leek (A. ampeloprasum L.), but double that of garlic. In restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), 'Mushuu- ninniku' produced patterns similar to those of leek and quite unlike those of great - headed garlic (A. ampeloprasum L.), which usually has a prominent bulb similar to 'Mushuu-ninniku'. Isozyme analyses also showed some similarity between 'Mushuu-ninniku' and leek. Although the alliinase mRNA size (1.9 kb) of 'Mushuu-ninniku' was identical to those of other Allium plants examined, the N-terminal 25 amino acids sequence of 'Mushuu-ninniku' alliinase was different from those of other Allium plants examined except leek. From these results, we concluded that 'Mushuu-ninniku' belongs to Allium ampeloprasum.