Rice is a major cereal crop of Assam, North East India. The local rice accessions grown in this region possess unique traits of breeder’s choice i.e., tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In the present investigation, 712 sali rice accessions of Assam were characterized using 20 qualitative and 13 quantitative traits. Among these, 19 qualitative traits showed distinct polymorphism except for the ligule colour. The maximum polymorphism was observed for apiculus colour followed by the colour of lemma palea and sterile lemma. The significant variation for the quantitative traits was recorded among the accessions. Lakhi Bilash and Borkamal were identified as the high yielding genotypes, which may be used further in breeding programmes. The cluster analysis using morphological traits based on the Euclidean distance matrix classified the accessions into the two distinct sub-groups. The high yielding accessions were grouped together in one cluster. A significant positive correlation was observed among the grain yield with the various panicle associated traits therefore, these may be used as selection criteria for development of high yielding rice varietiies
