CONTRIBUTION TO THE CHEMOTAXONOMY OF THE CHILEAN LORANTHACEAE

A phenetic study of six species of Chilean Loranthaceae Tristerix cory mbosus (L.) Kuijt, T. verticillatus (Ruiz et Pavon) Barlow et Wiens, T . aphyllus (Miers ex DC) Van Thieg, Desmaria mutabilis (Ruiz et Pavon) Van Thieg, Notanthera heterophylla (Ruiz et Pavon) G. Don and Ligaria cuneifolia (Ruiz et Pavon) Van Tieg ex Barlow et Wiens and the two sp ecies of the Eremolepidaceae of Chile. Lepidoceras chilensis (Mol.) Ku ijt and Antidaphne punctulata (Clos) Kuijt, are reported. This study i s based on flavonoids as chemical character. The phenetic ralationship s of the eight species were studied using the Jaccard coefficient and UPGMA as a clustering algorithm. This study showed that there exists a close relationship between the species of the genus Tristerix, formin g a well defined group connected with the other genera of the family L oranthaceae: Ligaria, Desmaria and Notanthera. The species Lepidoceras chilensis and Antidaphne punctuata, belonging to the Eremolepidaceae, are closely related betwen themselves and are distantly related to al l the other species. These results agree with the work done by Kuijt i n 1988 based on morphological characters.