Genus Taraxacum has been widely used as a folkloric medicine for treatment of diverse diseases. The genetic diversity and relationship among 32 accessions belonging to five Taraxacum species (T. mongolicum T. coreanum, T. coreanum var. flavescens, T. officinale and T. laevigatum) which collected from field, mountain, island and seaside of Korea were evaluated using ISSR markers. A total of 142 ISSR loci detected in the overall species were all polymorphic loci (100%) and interspecies polymorphisms obtained from Korean native and naturalized species were 98.2% and 94.5%, respectively. The genetic similarity matrix (GSM) among 32 accessions ranged from 0.025 to 0.860 with an average of 0.303. According to the clustering analysis, the Korean native species and naturalized species were divided two major clusters. In addition, the different species were divided into independent groups except for the T. coreanum and T. coreanum var. flavescens, and all the 32 accessions could be classified into 7 categories. The study findings indicate that Taraxacum accessions have a high genetic diversity and the dandelion accessions as breeding materials can be effectively utilized for the improvement of Taraxacum breeding.

• Jai-Hyunk Ryu
• Chang-Hyu Bae