Genetic study of two species of wild saffron using morphological traits and RAPD marker

In this study، the genetic diversity of 25 Iranian saffron genotypes from three species (Crocus speciosus، Crocus cancellatus and Crocus sativus) has been evaluated using 16 morphological traits and RAPD marker. C. sativus was different with speciosus in the leaf number per plant، tepal length، flower weight، inflorescence stem height and the stigma length، but had no significant difference with cancellatus species. Considering traits such as the number of outer cover and the corm dry weight، domestic saffron species was different with cancellatus and similar to speciosus. 19 primers have been investigated in PCR reactions. A total number of 276 bands have been amplified from all the samples، out of which there were 261 polymorphic bands and the cophenetic coefficient was about r = 0. 96. ‍Cluster analysis was done on the basis of polymorphic bands and using Jaccard''s similarity coefficient and by UPGMA method and the samples were divided into four groups at similarity of 0. 36. In this method، the same as morphological traits، C. specious were separated from the other two species. Domestic saffron was well separated from cancellatus and speciosus at similarity of 0. 28.