Investigation of inter-specific relationship on eight species of Tragopogon based on karyotypic characteristics

Eight species of Tragopogon L. from East Azarbaijan province were studied as follows: T. montanus، T. pusillus، T. graminifolius، T. vaginatum، T. choloratum، T. reticulatum، T. rezaiyensis and T. buphthalmoides. Five methaphasic cells were studied for each of the species. Base chromosome numbers of the genera were 6 and 7. Principal components analysis based on all of the characters revealed that according to the first and second components the role of characters such as Long arm length, total chromosome length and percentage of long arm length (L%) were important in Tragopogon species classification. Cluster analysis was used for determining similarity between the species. Based on the cluster analysis the species were divided into 4 groups. Averages of arm ratio of the groups were 1. 09, 2. 05, 1. 91 and 1. 7 micron, respectively. The species in the first group were characterized with metacentric chromosomes. The species in the rest of the groups were characterized with sub metacentric chromosomes. The species in the second, third and forth groups (T. vaginatum، T. pusillus T. choloratum، T. buphthalmoides، T. graminifolius and T. montanus) are evolutionary more advanced than species in the first group (T. reticulatum، T. rezaiyensis).