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Abstract Detail


Biogeography

Kirkbride, Jr., Joseph H. [1], Olsen, Richard [1], Rinehart, Timothy [2].

Genetic races of Chionanthus retusus, the Chinese fringetree, (Oleaceae) in the United States.

The genus Chionanthus L. (Oleaceae) has 60-80 species of which three are deciduous and temperate and the others are evergreen and subtropical or tropical. The three temperate species are C. retusus Lindl. & Paxton, native to eastern China, Korea, and Taiwan; C. virginicus L., native to the eastern United States; and C. pygmaeus Small, endemic to central Florida. The inflorescences of C. retusus are terminal on new growth, and those of C.virginicus and C. pygmaeus are lateral, developing from buds of the previous year. Chionanthus retusus, the Chinese fringetree, has been cultivated in Europe since 1845 and in the United States since the late 19th Century. It is a beautiful spring flowering tree that is completely covered with white flowers, and is an outstanding small tree for gardens. Using selected accessions, a library of 195 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers derived from 384 primers was developed for C. retusus. These were used to analyze 62 accessions of C.retusus from American arboreta, botanic gardens, parks, and nurseries. Allele data were transformed into a distance matrix using shared allele distances (DAS), and then neighbor-joining was used to produce a phenetic tree with C. virginicus and Osmanthus americanus (L.) Benth. & Hook. f. ex A. Gray accessions at the base of the tree. Six clusters in the tree corresponded to the geographic origins of the original introductions into the United States. Most of the commercially sold plants in the United States belong to just two of the clusters, and the accessions of the other four clusters have either been preserved in arboreta, botanic gardens, or parks, or have recently been introduced into the United States. Therefore, American plant breeders have genetically diverse accessions of C. retusus, as yet underutilized, available to them for the development of new, C. retusus cultivars.

Broader Impacts:


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1 - Usda-Ars, U.S. National Arboretum, 3501 New York Avenue NE, Washington, DC, 20002-1958, USA
2 - USDA-ARS, 810 Highway 26 West, Poplarville, MS, 39470, USA

Keywords:
Oleaceae
Chionanthus retusus
Chinese fringetree
SSR markers.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Topics
Session: 2
Location: Franklin B/Hyatt
Date: Monday, July 9th, 2012
Time: 10:45 AM
Number: 2009
Abstract ID:244


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