TY - JOUR AU - Sheidai, Masoud AU - Tabasi, Melica AU - Mehrabian, Mohammad-Reza AU - Koohdar, Fahimeh AU - Ghasemzadeh-Baraki, Somayeh AU - Noormohammadi, Zahra PY - 2018/04/01 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Species delimitation and relationship in Crocus L. (Iridaceae) JF - Acta Botanica Croatica JA - Acta Bot. Croat. VL - 77 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - UR - https://www.abc.botanic.hr/index.php/abc/article/view/1483 SP - AB - The genus <em>Crocus</em> L. (Iridaceae) is monophyletic and contains about 100 species throughout the world. <em>Crocus</em> species have horticultural, medicinal and pharmacological importance. Saffron is the dried styles of <em>C. sativus</em> and is one of the world’s most expensive spices by weight. Controversy exits about the taxonomy of the genus and the species relationship. Exploring genetic diversity and inter-specific cross-ability are important tasks for conservation of wild taxa and for breeding of cultivated <em>C. sativus</em>. The present study was performed to study genetic variability and population structure in five <em>Crocus</em> L. species including <em>Crocus almehensis</em> Brickell &amp; Mathew, <em>C. caspius</em> Fischer &amp; Meyer, <em>C. speciosus</em> Marschall von Biberstein, <em>C. haussknechtii</em> Boissier, and <em>C. sativus</em> L. by inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) molecular markers. We also used published internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences to study species relationship and compare the results with ISSR data. The results revealed a high degree of genetic variability both within and among the studied species. Neighbor joining (NJ) tree and network analysis revealed that ISSR markers are useful in <em>Crocus</em> species delimitation. Population fragmentation occurred in <em>C. caspius</em> and <em>C. sativus</em>. Both ISSR and sequenced based analyses separated <em>C. sativus</em> from the other studied species. Close genetic affinity of <em>C. sativus</em> and <em>C. pallisii</em> and inter-specific gene flow was supported by both data sets. ER -