Abstract

Araceae is a large and ancient monocot family most notable for its impressive morphological diversity. The current work included the investigation of morphological criteria of some taxa of Araceae viz. whole plant, leaf architecture, stomatography (LM & SEM) leaf, petiole and stem in addition to molecular criteria (RAPD) to throw light on the taxonomic importance of these characters. The amalgamated character states Viz. morphological (269 attributes) and molecular (149 bands) of total (418 attributes) of the studied taxa were phenetically analyzed by aid of NTSys-pc software (version 2.02). The generated phenogram expressed the similarities/dissimilarities among the present taxa. The interrelationships at specific level were discussed and aligned with some of the classification systems. The target of the coducted study is trying to explore the phenetic inter-specific relations among the taxa under study through the sharing of morphological and molecular characters in addition to the assessment of such characters. The combined morphological and molecular criteria segregated Alocasia odora away from the remainings and grouped Philodendron erubescens, Scindapsus aureus and Spathiphyllum walisii in distinct group while the remaining six in another distinct one.

Key words: Molecular systematics, Morphology, Numerical analysis