Abstract:
Based on overall morphological characters of 49 species and 4 variations of
Quercus in China,we measured 25 qualitative and 18 quantitative characters.In cluster analysis,the result revealed that
Quercus were divided clearly into five phenetic groups,namely Section Aegilops,Section
Quercus,Section
Brachylepides,Section
Engleriana and Section
Echinolepides.Principal components analysis obtained the same result of the cluster analysis,but the cumulation rises slowly and that of the first three principal components presented only 50.4%.These results indicated that the principal taxonomic characters exist in
Quercus for taxonomy still,only in the period of evolution,several different phenetic groups were produced in the genus
Quercus.The result was useful for identifying closely related species of
Quercus as well.The method of numerical taxonomy was significance in taxonomy for
Quercus.