Abstract The genus Muscari Mill. (Asparagaceae Juss.) includes about 80 species distributed in Eurasia, mainly in the Mediterranean region.
Abstract The genus Muscari Mill. (Asparagaceae Juss.) includes about 80 species distributed in Eurasia, mainly in the Mediterranean region. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that the taxa belonging to this group form a monophyletic clade and are closely related. However, the phylogeny and status of some taxa of Muscari sensu lato remain controversial. So far, most phylogenetic studies of the genus Muscari have used almost exclusively Mediterranean plant material, while representatives of the genus from the Carpathian region remain unexplored. In this work, we used the sequencing of three regions of chloroplast DNA, psbA-trnH, trnT-L, and trnL-F, to clarify the phylogenetic relationships in the genus Muscari, to assess the genetic polymorphism and taxonomic status of Ukrainian populations of M. botryoides, as well as specimens of other Muscari species from the Carpathian region. According to the results of the phylogenetic analysis, the genus Muscari is a monophyletic group that includes three subgenera: Muscari, Muscarimia, and Pseudomuscari. Leopoldia species have been placed in the subgenus Muscari. Specimens of M. botryoides from Ukraine and Austria together with M. transsilvanicum from Romania and M. serpentinicum/M. sandrasicum from Turkey form the clade “Botryoides”, one of the three main clades identified in the subgenus Muscari. A significant genetic distance between Ukrainian specimens of M. botryoides, specimens of this species from other habitats, and other species of the genus Muscari allows us to consider the Ukrainian specimens of M. botryoides as a new, previously undescribed species. A comparison of the sequences of the investigated regions of the chloroplast genome revealed genetic differences between two groups of Ukrainian populations of M. botryoides, which can be interpreted as the existence of two intraspecific forms.
