Phenotypic and Genotypic Assessment of Some Iranian Ziziphora clinopodioides Lam. Ecotypes

Ziziphora clinopodioides Lam., a medicinal plant of Lamiaceae family, is a widespread species all over Iran. In this investigation, the genetic diversity of 10 ecotypes of Ziziphora clinopodioides was evaluated using morphological, phytochemical, and molecular markers. ISSR and iPBS markers were applied for the molecular analysis. The average of polymorphic bands per primer in the iPBS and ISSR markers were 4.4 and 6.68, with the average polymorphism of 79.49 and 92.03%, respectively. The ecotypes of Evard and Sorkhgarive had the highest values of the important breeding traits, including the shortest internode, the highest ratio of leaf to vegetative body weight, the highest essential oil yield, and the total phenol content. The results showed that ecotypes had a wide variation in terms of all studied markers. Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) confirmed the results of molecular clustering of ecotypes, but phytochemical and morphological data did not have alignment with that. Also, there was no correspondence among the geographical locations of habitats and the phytochemical, morphological, and molecular markers data.