Morphological and anatomical relationships in Alpine- Dinaric populations of the genus Iris L., Pallidae series (A. Kern.) Trinajstic (Iridaceae)

The relationships within the Alpine-Dinaric and cultivated populations of t he genus Iris, Pallidae series, have been analysed. Seven morphological cha racteristics (stem length, length of the largest leaf, greatest width of th e largest leaf, length of the smallest leaf greatest width of the smallest leaf, the number of leaves and the number of flowers) and seven leaf anatom ical (length and width of stomata, length and width of epidermal cells, num ber of stomata and epidermal cells per mm(2) and length of styloids) have b een used for this purpose. Relationships between populations were analysed by methods of multivariate statistics (Cluster, PCA and MST analyses). The results of Cluster and PCA analyses showed that, owing to leaf anatomical f eatures, five main groups of the populations could be distinguished within the Pallidae series. Four of them belong to the species I. pallida, I. ceng ialti, I. illyrica and I. pseudopallida. The MST analyses showed that the f ifth group contained mixed populations of I. illyrica and I. pseudopallida. The results point at the lack of taxonomic usefulness of the leaf anatomic al features analysed and indicate that they caused successive geographical differentiation of the populations of the Pallidae series.