crocus (iridaceae) species relationships based on the anatomical characters

Crocus belongs to the iridaceae family which comprises 88-100 species. this genus is represented in iran by 24 species. this study analyzed relationships among the eight taxa distributed in iran using 11 leaf anatomical characters. upgma (unweighted paired group using average) and ward clustering were performed using the euclidean distance after 1000 times bootstrapping. the principal component analysis (pca) shows that the three main components represent 85% of the variation. the pca of anatomical traits effectively delineated the species under investigation. furthermore, the pca biplot demonstrated that anatomical features can successfully differentiate between species.  notably, the condition of c. haussknechtii was found to be closely related to the two species, c. biflorus and c. michelsonii, despite c. haussknechtii being classified within the crocus section, while the other two species belong to the nudicapus section.our findings indicate that additional anatomical data and molecular data are necessary for reliable conclusions regarding the studied species.