Phylogenetic relationships among the bamboo species as revealed by morphological characters and polymorphism analyses

Phylogenetic relationships among 15 bamboo species were evaluated using 32 key morphological descriptors and 120 polymorphic loci of the genomic DNA generated using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique. The dendrogram generated for these two parameters based on similarity matrix computed from allelic polymorphism data using unweighted pair group method of analysis. Phylogenetic relationships as revealed from the dendrogram and principal component analysis was in concurrence with the reliable, widely referred system of bamboo classification, while, the cluster pattern generated from the similarity matrix derived from key morphological character analysis was discriminatory. The findings suggest that the molecular evidences need to be supplemented by morphological data to validate the phylogenetic relationships among taxa.