Maytenus ilicifolia and M. aquifolium are native Brazilian species popularly known as espinheira-santa, being indicated for gastritis and stomach ulcer. Embrapa Clima Temperado and Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel) keep a gene bank of these species. With the objective of identifing phenotypic variability for some morphological characters in matrices of espinheira-santa, estimating dissimilarity and clustering accessions through multivariate analysis, 105 accessions had been morphologically characterized. The characteristics evaluated were fruit length, fruit width, number of seeds per fruit, leaf length, leaf width, leaf length/leaf width ratio and number of thorns per leaf. The euclidean distance was estimated and accessions were clustered by Tocher optimization method. A wide variability for all the characteristics analyzed was observed. The number of thorns per leaf was the characteristics that more contributed to the divergence. The morphological characteristics enabled to separate the accesses in seven clusters. The higher dissimilarity was between accessions 57 (M. ilicifolia) and 91 (M. aquifolium). There was no evidence of a separation in accordance to the geographic localization of the accessions. In the clustering analysis were identified two clusters that had accessions of both species, M. ilicifolia and M. aquifolium, indicating phylogenetic relatedness between these species.
medicinal plants; Celastraceae; genetic resources; genetic dissimilarity; euclidean distance
