MORPHOLOGICAL CLADISTIC ANALYSIS OF CALLIGONUM AND PTEROPYRUM (POLYGONACEAE) IN IRAN

The phylogeneteic relationships in genera Calligonum and Pteropyrum (Polygonaceae) are reconstructed using 30 vegetative and reproductive morphological characters. The data matrix comprised 18 species of Calligonum and 3 species of Pteropyrum plus 2 Atraphaxis species representing outgroups. The analyses were conducted using maximum parsimony approach with characters treated both equally weighted and reweighted by rescaled consistency index. The results revealed that Calligonum is monophyletic. But Pteropyrum is appeared to be monophyletic after reweighting procedure. In both analyses Calligonum is composed of two clades, one is including the winged fruit species (sect. Pterococcus) and the second including the bristled fruit ones(sect. Calligonum) encompassing the monotypic sect. Calliphysa (Calligonum junceum). Of 30 characters analyzed, seven are synapomorphic for both genera. Six characters in Calligonum and one in Pteropyrum were genus specific. The remainder of characters was evolved homoplasiously (or ambiguously) among thsese taxa.