2016, Vol. 4, Issue 5, Part B

author(s)
Soumya Murali, Rashmi TR and Francis MS

abstract
The genus Aristolochia comes under the family Aristolochiaceae, a conspicuous family with distinctive and showy flowers positioned among the basal angiosperms. The taxonomic treatment of the genus Aristolochia is ambiguous. Several generic segregates have been proposed for the genus and most literatures propose four subgenera within two subtribes. The study focused on the relationship of A. indica, A. tagala, A. ringens and A. krisagathra with the different generic segregates. The sequencing was carried out using rbcL, matK, psbA-trnH, ITS and ITS2. However, only rbcL and matK were used to infer the relationship because of the lack of availability of sequences of psbA-trnH, ITS and ITS2 representing the different generic segregates. Both the neighbor joining trees constructed using rbcL and matK placed A. krisagathra as the sister taxon of A. indica with very high bootstrap values. A. krisagathra, A. indica and A. tagala forms a part of the subsection Podanthemum and Diplolobus section along with A. zollingeriana, whereas the exotic A. ringens formed a part of Gymnolobus section.