Morphological collation of species and accessions of Plumbago L. using numerical analysis

This study examines relationship of species and accessions of Plumbago found in Maharashtra (India). This is achieved by phenetic clustering based on morphological characters. Three species and two accessions were collected and identified. For each sample 16 qualitative and 16 quantitative characters were scored and data were subjected to numerical taxonomy analysis. The result of the present study clearly indicates that there are 2 subsections basically grouped as Plumbago auriculata, Plumbago zeylanica and their accessions on one branch where as Plumbago rosea on the separate branch, clearly indicating the relationship among the three species and accessions of Plumbago. In support principal coordinate analysis PCO (Gower General Similarity Coefficient) and the biplot Principal Correspondence Analysis (PCA-biplot) was carried out and showed significant result.