Morphological and physiological variation in lablab bean (Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet)

A total of 107 lablab bean germplasm representing 20 different countries were evaluated for major morphological characters such as growth habit, plant type, number of branches, flowering response to photoperiod, pigmentation on stem, petiole, leaf vein, leaf margin, petal, sepal, pod and seed coat and size of leaf, pod and seed. Variation was found among the germplasm (dissimilarity value ranged from 0.0-114.6) but no definite regional gene pool was identified. Wild type accessions were very close in their morphology, whereas Asian accessions showed much variation.