Variabilità di caratteri in specie diverse di melanzana

127 accessions of eggplant, belonging to the three species: S. melongena, S. aethiopicum and S. macrocarpon, selected from the recent European eggplant collection (about 4,230 accessions) and maintained at INRA-Montfavet (France), were evaluated for 41 plant and fruit descriptors at the Bari gene bank. The variation of 30 qualitative descriptors out of 41 was studied utilizing the Shannon-Wiener index of diversity, which showed a wide intra- and interspecific variation. Multivariate analyses of 11 quantitative descriptors out of 41 showed a synthetic description of the total variation with some evidences not strictly related to the three investigated species. Finally, within the obtained grouping, it has been possible to identify some genotypes promising for breeding work