Abstract:In order to distinguish different species of wild yellow type Medicago ruthenica， the pollen morphology of wild yellow type M. ruthenica， M. ruthenica and M.falcata were characterized and compared via microscopic observations. It showed that the pollens in wild yellow type M. ruthenic， M. ruthenica and M. falcata were all N3P4C5 type single granules. The pollen size of the two species of M. ruthenica were similar， which were smaller than M. falcate. There are significant differences on the pollen exine pattern among these three forage species. There are waxes covered on the pollen surface of yellow-flowered M. ruthenica and M. ruthenica， while it lacks of wax on the pollen surface of M. falcate. The pollen exine of yellow type M. ruthenica is mainly foveolate with slightly cerebroid-like pattern. The pollen exine of M. ruthenica is generally foveolate patterned， while that of M.falcata is generally cerebroid-like patterned. These results showed that the pollen exine pattern of yellow type M. ruthenica was most similar to M. ruthenica， but significantly different with M. falcata. Thus， the pollen exine pattern could be used as a morphological index for taxonomy of the germplams belonging to different species of M. ruthenica.

Abstract:The genetic relationship of 10 M. ruthenica populations from Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Shanxi Provinces and Inner Mongolia and Tibet autonomous regions of China were analysis by AFLP. 8 primers with strong polymorphism and good repeatability were screened from 64 AFLP primers, generating a total of 640 bands of which 472 (73.8%) showed polymorphism. On average, the Nei’s gene diversity, Shannon’s information index and genetic similarity index (GS) were 0.157, 0.099 and 0.827, respectively. 10 M. ruthenica germplasms were divided into 3 groups with the higher correlation of geography resource by the cluster analysis and PC results. AFLP is the candidate molecular marker to reveal the genetic diversity of M. ruthenica. The results indicated that the wild population of M. ruthenica from the china had a rich genetic diversity in AFLP genotype and thus it was of great important to explore genetic evolution and gene resources and to preserve the local M. ruthenica populations in this area and expanded area.