NUMERICAL TAXONOMIC ANALYSES OF ALLOZYMIC VARIATION IN CAPSICUM (SOLANACEAE)

Summary Starch gel electrophoresis has been employed to produce allozyme profiles of 966 individual plants representing twelve morphologically defined domestic and wild taxa of Capsicum. A total of 63 alleles representing 23 enzyme loci has been recognized. These alleles were used as characters in numerical taxonomic analyses, by way of cluster analysis and principal coordinates analysis, of patterns of variation within and between these taxa. The results demonstrate that in some cases there is good agreement between morphological and allozymic patterns of variation while in other cases there is little such agreement. The major groups of taxa, i.e., the white‐flowered and purple‐flowered groups, are easily discernible but there are problems within these groups. For example, C. pubescens is easily separable from C. cardenasii and C. eximium yet the latter two are indistinguishable. The same pattern is noted, although not so clearly, in the C. baccatum‐C. praetermissum complex. Whereas these two taxa can be separated, the two varieties ( baccatum and pendulum ) of C. baccatum cannot. Additionally, there is complete overlap among the members of what may be called the C. annuum complex, i.e., C. annuum v. annuum, C. a. v. aviculare, C. chinense , and C. frutescens. Finally, the inclusion of two other wild taxa, C. chacoense and C. tovari , permits speculation on the systematic relationships between these taxa and the other wild and domestic taxa.