Polyploids are characterized by larger cells with higher water contents and smaller osmotic values, decreased growth rates, changes in the organs' proportions towards each other, a prolonged period until flower formation begins and by a prolonged flowering itself. The number of chloroplasts in the guard cells is correlated to the degree of ploidy. After input of the species is it possible to call up different properties, among them also the number of chromosomes. Every species is characterized by a given number of chromosomes that can be recognized by their specific shape. To describe the karyotype of a species it is necessary to determine both number and shape of the chromosomes.
Today is also the distribution of the heterochromatin often taken into account.
Their actual chromosome number is often a multiple of x. Translocations and inversions lead to new combinations of the genetic information and thus to an increase in variability. The correlation of the cytological proof for translocations with the changes in coupling groups refuted the last criticism of the chromosome theory. In Drosophila could genetically detected deletions be brought into line with the loss of a giant chromosome fragment. The size and the site of this fragment correlated with the respective distances in the gene map.