[Numerical taxonomy of medicinal plants from Areae in Zhejiang Province]

Numerical taxonomic studies were done on 13 species from 3 genera of tribe Areae in Zhejiang, used as 13 operational taxonomic units (OTUS). 40 morphological characters were used for analysis. Euclid distance coefficients used to show quantitative index of similarity among OTUS were computed by standardized data. The dendrograms from 8 systematic cluster methods including single linkage method, complete linkage method, median method (beta = 0 WPGMA) and (beta = -0.25 WPGMA), centroid method, group average method, variable group average method (beta = -0.25) and variable method (beta = 0.25) were constructed respectively. WPGMA was slected as the optimal one by computing the comparative coefficients of every cluster result and the boundary of taxa in its dendrogram determined by a method to treated IBM computer with the program by BASIC language. The Results showed that 13 OTUs were classified as 3 clusters by broken line L2, namely, cluster I: Typhonium; cluster II: Arisaema; cluster III: Pinellia, and cluster II further as 4 groups by L1, which belong to Section Pistillata, Arisaema, Sinarisaema and Tortuosa respectively. Being consistent with those from classical taxonomy, the results in this study may be helpful to the classification and identification of the medicinal plants from tribe Areae in Zhejiang Privince.