A phenetic study of the taxonomic delimitation of Quercus acutifolia and Q. conspersa (Fagaceae)

A phenetic study of Quercus acutifolia and Q. conspersa (Fagaceae) is carri ed out. The study was based on morphological characters, and included clust er analysis and principal component analysis. The results revealed that the characters employed so far to separate Quercus acutifolia and Q. conspersa seem to be quite unreliable. Nevertheless, both species can still be recog nized as taxonomically different entities, although mostly based on charact ers of leaf margins. We propose that the individuals that have leaves with dentate-aristate margins correspond to Q. acutifolia, whereas those that ha ve leaves with entire and not dentate-aristate margins belong to Q. consper sa.