BIOCHEMICAL DIVERSITY AND SYSTEMATICS OF MEDITERRANEAN EVERGREEN OAK FROM SOUTH EAST FRANCE

Fatty acids, steroids and inorganic and organic constituents of acorns of French Mediterranean evergreen oak (70 trees from five ecogeograph ically contrasting locations) were analyzed, and compared with Italian and Spanish oak. French populations were heterogeneous and, for most characters, were intermediate between Spanish and Italian oak, suggest ing this to be a zone of hybridization and introgression between Querc us ilex L. and Q. rotundifolia Lamk. The population from Les Maures sh owed a closer affinity morphologically and chemically to Italian oak s uggesting the presence of a ilex at this locality.