THE TAXONOMICAL SIGNIFICANT OF COMPUTERD PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS AND MORPHOLOGICAL DATA IN SOME SPECIES OF POLYGONACEAE

This research dealt with study of cladistics taxonomy of five species related to the genus Rumex L. and Polygonum L. from family polygonaceae in Iraq by using Mesquite software V.2.75. This research support strongly delimiting the species P. aviculare L. and P. lapathifolia L.as suggested in floras publication while R. dentatus L. is setted in single group whereas R. vesicarius L. and R. conglomeratus Murray were included in the same group. Also, this study involved characteristics of shape, dimensions, color, and ornamentation of seeds and fruits as the seed forms were ranging from lenticular to trigonous. In terms of size calculations, the seeds of R. vesicarius was recorded the higher range (4.04.5) mm in length while, P. aviculare recorded the lowest (1.5-1) mm in length. However, the shape was lenticular in P. lapathifolia and trigonous in the remaining species. Color of seeds and surface ornamentation is recognized. fruits shape is an important characters in identification of selected species as two groups are distinguished: persistent tubercules tepals which are spine teeth in R. dentatus and tongue like shape in R. conglomeratus, the second group is persistent tepals which are papery in P. lapathifolia, biconvex in P. aviculare and cordate to winged as in R. vesicarius beside that, colors, dimensions and surface nature is also recorded.


‫العراقية‬ ‫الزراعية‬ ‫العلوم‬ ‫مجلة‬
. The family is generally 30 to 49 genera with about 750 species globally and approximately 33 species in Iraq (10,11,14,15).The genus Rumex has the highest diversity within Iraqi buckweed family with ten species distributed throughout Iraqi districts principally towards the mountain regions. However, in flora of Iraq eight species of Polygonum had been stated as perennial and mostly glabrous weeds in the north areas (1,2,3,10,12,17,16).
Polygonum is heterogeneous complex taxonomically with various floras treatment as number of genera had been added or removed like Persicaria, Moreover, this species has a medical benefit to treat dysentery with bloody stools, UTI, bacteremia, endocarditis and meningitis (19,20,22

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sample Collections Specimens of this study were collected from herbarium specimens moreover, field trips have been done during collecting season in different places of Iraq from 2017-2018. Matured achenes and nuts have been examined under dissecting microscope for further identification (10,11). The phenotypic shape of the fruits and seeds in each species have observed beside that, the external features of the surface sculpturing of fruits and seeds by anatomical microscope have studied and recorded all the observations and measurements differences of selected species from family polygonaceae. Generally 5 samples were examined for each species according to their availability in the lab.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The phylogenetic tree has been carried out by mesquite software by using 25 characters state revealed delimited the species Polygonum aviculare from Persicaria lapathifolia while R. conglomeratus and R. dentatus is include in the same sister group. On the other hand, R. vesicarius is represented as separated group as illustrated in fig(1)and this assist the previous work by other scientists for this fact (10,11).

Fig.1 Tree of data matrix constructed by mesquite software Fruit and seeds morphology
This study was examined fruits and seeds of selected species from polygonaceae family which showed differentiation among selected species by dimensions, color and surface sculpturing patterns. In terms of dimension calculations, the seeds of Rumex vesicarius was recorded the higher range(4.0-4.5)mm in length while Polygonum aviculare recorded the lowest one(1.5-1)mm in length. On the other hand, the highest average of length was (1.5-1.75) mm in Rumex vesicarius L. and lowest range was(1-1.25) in Rumex conglomeratus L. However, the measurement of width was varied from 0.75 mm. to in P. aviculare to 2.5 mm. in R. vesicarius. Regarding to seed shapes, two groups had been differentiated into as table (2): first group: seeds with lenticular shape include species Persicaria lapathafolia while the second group included seeds with a trigonous shape for other remaining species. In terms of color seeds, there was gradient from brown color in Polygonum aviculare to dark brown in Persicaria lapathafolia and Rumex dentatus while black color is noticed in Rumex conglomeratus L. However, pale yellow is stated in R. vesicariusas in Fig (2).table(2).For surface texture all studied species were smooth as illustrated in table(2). The achene length of P. aviculare was 2 mm while R. vesicarius had higher rang (4.5-10.0) mm, although the length was (7.5-15.0)mm in R. dentatus. According to size parameters the smallest width found 0.75 mm in P. aviculare and the largest width was in 8 mm in R. vesicarius, where P. lapathofoliawas1.75mm, R. congolemeratus was 2.5-3mm and 3-5.5mm in R. dentatus respectively. Out of five species, two types of fruits shape have been differentiated: persistent tubercules tepals which are spine teeth in R. dentatus and tongue like shape in R. conglomeratus, the second shape is persistent tepals which are papery in Persicaria lapatafolia, biconvex in P. aviculare and cordate to winged as in R. vesicarius as illustrated in Fig (3) table (3).In terms of color surface of fruits there was variation from light brown in all species of Polygonum and R. dentatus through dark brown into Persicaria lapathafolia and R. conglomeratus to light yellow in R. vesicarius as it usually pink when fruit is fresh as noticed in fig (4). However, the surface sculpturing is an important feature as graduated from granular in P. aviculare faintly netted bounded by small edges in Persicaria lapathafolia while there was serrated sculpturing in R. dentatus and R. vesicarius L. but it was smooth surface in R. conglomeratus L. as table (3), the proceeding study some species were heterogeneous in appearance.