Study the morphological diversity of snake bean (vigna unguiculata) collected from Kelantan

Vigna unguiculata or commonly known as snake bean or cowpea is an annual legume originated in Africa and is widely grown in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and in the southern United States. It is belonging to Fabacea family. The collection of accession of snake bean (Vigna unguiculata) is important for plant improvement program. The objective of this study was to identify the morphological characters of snake bean accessions collected from various places in Kelantan. Six accessions of snake bean have been collected from six different districts; i.e. Kota Bharu, Bachok, Machang, Kuala Krai, Pasir Puteh and Tumpat. The variables measured in this study were of qualitative and quantitative characters. The qualitative characters included color of pod, color of seed, color of flower, leaf arrangement on stem, leaf arrangement on petiole, overall leaf shape, shape of leaf apex and base, and margin of leaf while those of quantitative included height of plant, number of leaves, number of flowers, number of branches, number of pods, and length of pods. For the qualitative variables, this morphological study showed that the district of Kota Bharu and Kuala Krai has the same color of pods which is light green, while the district of Pasir Puteh and Tumpat also showed the same color which is dark yellowish green. The district of Bachok show dark green pod in color and pod from Machang has a yellowish-green color. Then, for the color of seed characteristics, the seed from Bachok and Kuala Krai have the same color of seed which is white, the color of seed from Kota Bharu is dark brown, black in color of seed from Machang, light brown in color of seed from Pasir Puteh and brown color in seed from Tumpat. For the color of flower, the flower from Pasir Puteh, Kuala Krai and Tumpat have the same color which is orange, while light purple in color of flower from Kota Bharu and white color of flower from Bachok. In this study, the overall shape of the leaf shows three types of shape which are hastate, cordate and lanceolate. For the shape of leaves apex, it show two shape which are acute and cuspidate.