Abstract

Urucum is a plant adapted to the soil and climate conditions of the semi-arid region. This study evaluates the biometry of urucum seeds. Twenty seeds of annatto were collected in an area of native vegetation with presence of the species, located in the Mossoró Mountains in the municipality of Mossoró, State of Rio Grande do Norte, Northeast Brazil in July 2017 and taken to the plant breeding laboratory, where the following characteristics were evaluated: (a) morphological characterization of the seed being determined the length and width in millimeters, of 200 seeds well developed, with the aid of a pachymeter with precision of 0.1mm and (b) weight of the seed expressed in grams. Descriptive and graphical analyzes were carried out using the statistical software R. The length and width showed a small range of variation, resulting in excellent and reasonable values of coefficients of variation, respectively. We found a regular degree of symmetry and a mesokurtic distribution for length and width of seeds. There was no significant linear correlation between length and width. The features of urucum seeds did not fit to the normal distribution of probability.

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