## 2 Results and Discussion  
### 2.1 Pomological Analysis of Pomeranate Accessions  
In this study, seven Italian pomeranate genotypes (Table 1) were analyzed for the morpho-pomological characters of the fruit and seeds, each of them harvested in its environmental niche. Such a unique combination of genetic background and environmental conditions resulted in a large variability in quantitative traits, as presented in Table 2. The size of the fruit and the color of the epicarp are key quality parameters in the international market for fresh products. Consumers particularly appreciate 'large' or'very large' fruits. Colorful fruits are also preferred, especially those referred to as'red' [15; 16]. The accessions studied showed a fruit skin color ranging from reddish-yellow (three accessions) to red purple (one accession) (Table 1). The mean fruit weight was 327.2 g among the accessions, comparable to the weight of the fruits of many pomergnate cultivars [9; 17; 18; 19]. According to the descriptors used by [PERSON] et al. [16], the AP2 and BA1 accessions can mainly be classified into the category of'very large' fruits (>350 g); the cultivar DC also falls into this class. Instead, the fruits of the accessions LI1, TU1, and TU2 can be categorized into'medium/large' fruits (150-350 g). According to [PERSON] et al. [11], who report the classification of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the AP2 accession could be categorized in A (>500 g), while BA1 and TU1 could be in the B (401-500 g) and C (301-400 g) classes, respectively. Regarding the equatorial fruit diameter and length, accession AP2 recorded the highest values, 9.06 cm and 10.08 cm, respectively, comparable to the average values observed in the Dente di Cavallo (DC) cultivar. Accession TU3, instead, showed the smallest fruit size compared to others, with values of 6.08 cm and 6.49 cm for FD and FL2, respectively (Table 2). All the accessions as well as the DC cultivar showed fruit with a closed or semi-closed calyx (Table 1). However, minimal differences were observed between the accessions for the length, diameter, and shape of the calyx. Similar to the other fruit morphological traits, the AP2 accession showed the highest values for CL and CD (1.90 cm and 2.69 cm, respectively), while the TU3 accession showed the lowest values (Table 2). The results are in the ranges reported by other authors for cultivars and/or local accessions [10; 17; 18; 19]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**ID** & **Accession Name** & \begin{tabular}{c} **Province** \\ **(Region, Country)** \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **Fruit** \\ **Shape** \\ \end{tabular} & **Epicarp Color** & **Shape of Base** & **Shape of Apex** &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Type** \\ **of Calyx** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline LI1 & Melograno di La & La Spezia & & & & & \\  & Spezia & & (Liguria, Italy) & & & & & \\  & & Firenze & & & & & \\ TU1 & Melograno di Firenze & & & & & & & \\ TU2 & Melograno di Butti & & & & & & \\ TU3 & Melograno di Lucca & & & & & & \\  & & Lecce & & & & & \\  & & & & & & & \\ BA1 & Melograno di Matera & & & & & & & \\  & & & & & & & \\ DC & Dente di Cavallo & & & & & & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: The accession code (ID), accession name, province (region, country), and fruit main qualitative morphological parameters of pomergnate genotypes used in this study. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**ID** & **FW (g)** & **FD (cm)** & **CL (cm)** & **CD (cm)** & **FL1 (cm)** & **FI2 (cm)** & **FC (cm)** & **SCW** & **FSI** & **CSI** \\ \hline LI1 & 179.2 \(\pm\)22.4 \({}^{\circ}\)  
The ratio between the equatorial diameter and length without the calyx of the fruit ranged from 0.76 to 1.19 for all the accessions; the LII and DC samples had the lowest FSI value, whereas TU1 had the highest (Table 2). This ratio defines the shape of the fruit.