A comparative analysis of genetic diversity in medicinal Chrysanthemum morifolium based on morphology, ISSR and SRAP markers

► In this paper, the diversity and genetic relationship across 29 C. morifolium populations, 1 C. indicum population and 1 C. nankingense population from China were analyzed using morphological traits and molecular markers. Twenty morphological traits were scored and also 182 ISSR marker-fragments, as amplified by 22 primers (PPB: 81.87%), and 243 SRAP marker-fragments as generated by 26 primer pairs (PPB: 75.72%). ► Mantel's test indicated significant correlation (r = 0.624) of morphological trait and SRAP. Contrastly, the morphological trait showed low correlation with ISSR (r = 0.246). Cluster analysis showed that groupings of the accessions according to all four methods correlated well with their geographic region of origin, and most populations from the south of China were classified to one cluster and most populations from the north of China were classified to another cluster. ► An appropriate strategy for conserving the C. morifolium germplasm was proposed.