Statistical Analysis of Selected Morphological Criteria of Some Taxa of Core Caryophyllales in Egypt

Abstract

There are still questions about the boundaries of numerous families, their evolutionary relationships, and the placement of several strange genera. The interrelationships between the families of the core Caryophyllales still need to be clarified; there is an apparent discrepancy, even though there are many previous studies. In the current study, 43 studied taxa belonging to seven families are collected from their natural habitats and some botanical gardens in Egypt. This study aims to examine and extract several diagnostic characteristics, namely, macromorphological, micromorphological, and the attributes of pollen grains using LM and SEM, to clarify and understand the interrelationships between the taxa under study as a new contribution in this approach.The obtained data show that they have diagnostic weight to help in the separation of the studied taxa, but some key characteristics are most influential in clarifying these relationships. All the obtained combined data were subjected to a statistical program (R programming) to analyze the strength of these criteria in interpreting and understanding these relationships. The UPGMA cluster analysis has shown that the taxa in the current study are categorized into two main groups, each of which gathered several taxa.The PCA divides the studied taxa into two dimensions (Dim. 1 & 2). The results obtained are reviewed and discussed considering the taxonomic concepts and what was achieved in previous studies.