Genetic and Phylogenetic Relationships of Genus Hemerocallis in Korea Using ISSR

Genus Hemerocallis is a herbaceous species and some species among their taxa are very important herbal medicines. We evaluated representative samples of the eight taxa in Korea with inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR) markers to estimate phylogenetic relationships within taxa of this genus. The studied taxa were Hemerocallis fulva L., H. fulva for. kwanso, H. dumortieri Morren, H. coreana Nakai, H. hongdoensis M.G.Chung & S.S.Kang, H. middendorffi Trautv. et Mayer, H. thunbergii Baker, H. minor Miller. In addition, we investigated the genetic variation and structure of Korean populations of these taxa. The mean genetic diversity was 0.098 across species, varying from 0.068 to 0.123. A low level of genetic variation was found in populations of Hemerocallis species. Specially, gene diversity for H. minor was maintained the highest among genus Hemerocallis. An indirect estimate of the number of migrants per generation (Nm=0.218) indicated that gene flow was not extensive among Korean populations of Hemerocallis species. The phylogenic tree showed distinct three clades. One includes H. fulva, H. fulva for. kwanso and H. middendorffi. Another includes three Hemerocallis species, H. dumortieri, H. thunbergii and H. minor. The H. coreana and H. hongdoensis were shown as the sister group to the second clades. Although the size of sampling was not large enough for eight Korean Hemerocallis species, the analyses of ISSRs will certainly provide an enhanced view on the phylogeny of species.