A Taxonomy Study on the Species Complex of Pharbitis nil(Convolvulaceae)

The morphologies of leaf,sepal,fruit and pollen of Pharbitis purpurea(L.)Voigt,P.nil(L.)Choisy and P.hederacea(L.)Choisy were examined under stereoscope and scanning electron microscope,and the sequences of the trnL-F region of chloroplast DNA and the nuclear ribosomal ITS region from three species were determined.The results indicated that the differences in the shape of leaf,sepal,fruit and pollen morphology are obviously different from them.In the majority-rule consensus trees from trnL-F and ITS region data,P.purpurea,P.nil and P.hederacea are included into one clade and the two latter clustered together with a support(70%)in the ITS tree,but only 63% in the trnL-F tree.Therefore,P.purpurea(L.)Voigt,P.nil(L.)Choisy and P.hederacea(L.)Choisy are respectively regarded as species.