Damask rose (Rosa damascena Mill) is widely cultivated throughout Iran and therefore the local Damask varieties in Iran may comprise a rich gene pool for this species waiting to be explored. To assess the diversity of the Iranian Damask germplasm, 41 damask rose genotypes were collected from the most important cultivation regions for this species which includes Fars, Isfahan, East Azerbaijan, Kerman and Khorasan provinces. Genetic markers including 50 quantitative and qualitative morphological traits, 31 RAPD and 38 SSR primers were involved in the genetic diversity evaluation of the studied genotypes. Results showed a high diversity of morphological characters especially those that were related to flower, leaf and prickle morphology. Molecular markers also revealed high levels of polymorphism, 190 and 225 polymorphic bands from selected RAPD and SSR primers were amplified. The basic relationships were similar among evaluation methods, although the degree of discrimination was much less for the morphological data. The data suggests that Iran is a center of diversity of Damask rose and gives us some clues about unknown center of origin of this species.

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