PHYLOGENETIC-RELATIONSHIPS OF JAPANESE ASTER (ASTERACEAE, ASTEREAE) SENSU LATE BASED ON CHLOROPLAST-DNA RESTRICTION SITE MUTATIONS

RFLPs of cpDNA were examined for 18 species of Aster, six species of K alimeris, two species of Miyamayomena and one species and one variety of Heteropappus from Japan, using 16 restriction endonucleases, Approx imately 275 restriction sites were surveyed, and a total of 74 restric tion site mutations was detected, and 31 of these were phylogeneticall y informative. Sixteen most parsimonious trees constructed from Wagner parsimony analysis indicated the polyphyly of Kalimeris and Miyamayom ena sensu Kitamura; K. miqueliana belongs to a different clade from th e remaining species of Kalimeris, and two species of Miyamayomena did not make a single clads. This result suggests that the shortening or l oss of pappus have happened parallelly in different evolutionary linea ges. We must be careful to assess the pappus character in taxonomy and phylogeny, and it is desirable to examine their phylogenetic relation ships using a molecular data.