Feulgen banding of heterochromatin in plant chromosomes

Feulgen bands can be obtained at the sites of constitutive heterochromatin in the chromosomes of Anemone blanda, Fritillaria lanceolata and Scilla siberica, simply by means of a short or extended acid hydrolysis. Extended hydrolysis gives positive bands in A. blanda and F. lanceolata and negative bands in S. siberica. Short hydrolysis gives no bands in A. blanda and S. siberica but gives negative bands in F. lanceolata. The kind of Feulgen banding obtained is not correlated with the type of base richness of the heterochromatin DNA; rather, it is probably due to differences in the associated nucleoproteins.