Morphology and chemical composition of Tunisian caper seeds…突尼斯刺果种子的形态和化学成分.pdfVIP

African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 10(10), pp. 2112-2118, 14 March, 2011 Available online at /AJB DOI: 10.5897/AJB10.1429 ISSN 1684–5315 © 2011 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Morphology and chemical composition of Tunisian caper seeds: variability and population profiling 1,2§ 2§ 1 3 4 Nizar Tlili *, Ezzeddine Saadaoui , Faouzi Sakouhi ,Walid Elfalleh , Mohamed El Gazzah , 1 2 Saîda Triki and Abdelhamid Khaldi 1Laboratoire de Biochimie, Département de Biologie, Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Université Tunis El-Manar, Tunis 2092, Tunisia. 2 Unité de Recherche, Gestion et Valorisation des Ressources Forestières, INRGREF, BP: 10 Ariana 2080, Tunisia. 3Laboratoire d’Aridoculture et Cultures Oasiennes, Institut des Régions Arides de Médenine, 4119, Tunisia. 4 Faculté des Sciences de Tunis Accepted 29 November, 2010 Caper, as a spontaneous plant, has a large natural distribution in the Mediterranean Sea basin. It is an interesting crop with an economic importance; especially the species Capparis spinosa. The morphology of seeds and their composition in lipid and protein were studied in 15 wild Tunisian caper populations: 9 populations represented the subspecies C. spinosa subsp. spinosa (thorny caper) and 6 populations represented the subspecies C. spinosa subsp. rupestris (inerm caper). Results show that seeds of C. spinosa are especially attractive because they