Systematic Revision of Erodium species in Egypt as Reflected by Variation in Morphological Characters and Seed Protein Electrophoretic Profile

The systematic relationships between the species of Erodium L`Hér. in the Egyptian flora have been reexamined,based on variation in vegetative and reproductive morphological characters as well as polymorphism in seed protein electrophoretic profile as revealed by SDS-PAGE. The relationships between the examined taxa have been expressed as UPGMA and NJ trees, based on the coefficient of similarity using the NTSYS-pc software program. In all trees, the species in section Plumosa have been delimited together as one group from another major group that comprises species of section Barbata. However, the delimitation of some species, did not agree with their current sub sectional delimitation. Similarities between E. neuradifolium of subsection Malacoidea and both E. ciconium(subsection Absinthioidea)and E. gruinum (subsection Gruina) as well as E. cicutarium andE. moschatum of subsection Cicutaria have been demonstrated in the trees bases on morphological and seed protein data. The remaining species of subsection Malacoidea i.e., E. laciniatum, E. pulverulentum and E.malacoides formed a cluster in which E. malacoides is clearly distinguished from the other two species. The clustering of E. laciniatum and E.pulverulentum reflects the morphological resemblances between them but does not warrant regarding the latter as a subspecies of the former.