RAPD ANALYSIS OF SHRUBS BELONGING TO THE GENUS CYTISUS AND ALLIES (GENISTEAE, FABACEAE), AS AN AID FOR TAXONOMIC DISCRIMINATION

Twenty-five accessions belonging to the genus Cytisus and allied taxa (Genisteae: Fabaceae) were analyzed using RAPD (Random Amplified Polym orphic DNA) techniques in order to study the usefulness of this techni que for characterization of species and genera and for estimation of i ts potential value for further populational studies and prebreeding pr ograms. A high level of intrapopulational variability was detected. Ne vertheless, when only common bands to all the studied individuals per accession were considered for numerical analysis, the technique was us eful for characterization at the specific and generic levels. The dend rogram obtained supports the generic arrangement proposed by Bisby (19 81), helping to elucidate the difficult taxonomy of the studied taxa. The high intrapopulational variability indicates that RAPD could be us eful for populational studies and also as molecular markers.