Meiotic observations of the pollen mother cells of Litchi chinenisis Sonn.

【Objective】To observe the meiosis process of pollen mother cell(PMC) of litchi on cytogeneticlevel.【Methods】The developed smearing method was used to study the chromosome behavior of litchicultivar‘Feizixiao'.【Results】The results showed that there were a series of abnormalities in meiosis ofPMC of litchi such as multiple nucleoli,univalent,lagging chromosome,asynchronization of chromosomessegregation,non-equal division,deviant tetra and so on,and the abnormalities frequency was 8.5%. Theabnormalities focused on Prophase Ⅰ,Metaphase Ⅰ,Prophase Ⅱ and Tetrad. The percentages were71.56%,33.33%,15.85% and 31.25% of cells observbed in the different periods. The formation mecha-nism was discussed.【Conclusion】It was concluded that lagging chromosome,asynchronization of chromo-somes segregation and non-equal division came from higher frequency of univalent in Diakinesis,thathad no direct relation with multiple nucleoli in Leptotene. These abnormal meiosis behaviors of PMCwere responsible for deviant tetra and resulted in pollen abortion. The abnormalities were related to the va-rieties,individualities and climates.