Commelina benghalensis, C. villosa, C. diffusa and C. erecta are known as wandering-jew in Brazil and are frequently misidentified, causing unsatisfactory herbicide control and promoting economic losses and environmental damage. This work aimed to select morphological characteristics of these four types of weeds using multivariate analysis methods to facilitate their identification. Twelve descriptive and thirteen quantitative morphological characteristics were used in clustering analysis and principal component analysis. Commelina species presented a high degree of dissimilarity, especially in their descriptive characteristics, such as, plant habit, stem and leaf pilosity. Quantitative characteristics also showed high differentiation degree. Morphological descriptive, and quantitative characteristics with taxonomic importance were selected to propose identification key for the four weed species.
Commelinaceae; plant morphology; plant taxonomy
