STUDIES ON THE PHYLOGENETIC RELATIONSHIPS OF CHINESE SAGITTARIA (ALISMATACEA)

This paper explores the application of cladistic analysis for the phylogenetic relationships among eight taxa of Chinese Sagittaria. Twelve ecological and morphological characters which have important bearing, on the phylogenetic relationships of the genus have been compared with corres-ponding characters of the Echinodorus (as an out-group) in the character analysis. A cladogram of Chinese Sagittaria has been constructed by using Farris-Wanger's method of numerical cladistic analysis, On these grounds, some problems about the phylogenetic relationships among the taxa and the origin of the genus, as well as methods of cladistic analysis have been discussed briefly in the paper.