THE APPLICABILITY OF MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS IN TAXONOMY OF ARTEMISIA (ASTERACEAE)

Many different morphological characteristics were widely used by several Flora in preparing keys for taxonomic identification of the taxa in the genus Artemisia (Asteraceae). In the current work an intensive review was carried out on different Flora and published papers and literatures on applications of morphological qualitative characteristics in taxonomy of Artemisia, of which 17 widely used characters were investigated for their importance in taxonomy of the genus. Multivariate analyses were performed using several statistical package i.e. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for detecting the most important characters differentiating the species, Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) for cluster analysis, Canonical Discriminant Function Analysis (CDFA) in order for confirmation of the clustering results. All these analyses showed that out of 17 morphological characters investigated; only 7 were useful for identification of the species and grouping the subgenera, and clearly separated homogamous species from heterogamous ones, indicating the importance of capitulum morphology in taxonomy of Artemisia at subgenera level. Our data showed that the four characters of cauline leaf type, leaf colour adaxial, leaf colour abaxial and capitalism attachment accounted for majority of variability. Phylogenetic analysis based on morphology indicated that the subgenera Artemisia and Dracunculus were more closely related to each other than either to the subgenus Serphidium. This work highlights the morphology importance in the taxonomic application and taxa identification.