LAUSR

The genus Rosa is one of the most important genera of ornamental plants comprising of more than 120 species of which only eight were involved in the development of modern roses. Proper characterization and identification of the species require an accurate and reliable method that discriminates the different species. In the present study, 56 Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers were used to identify and discriminate the 21 cultivated and four wild species of rose. Among the 56 SSR markers, 24 exhibited polymorphism giving a total of 47 alleles across the 28 rose species. The number of alleles ranged from 1 to 3 per marker locus with an average of 1.42. The polymorphism information content for 24 SSR markers ranged from 0.102 (Rw5G14) to 0.87 (Rw60A16) with an average of 0.365. Maximum dissimilarity was observed between R. tomentosa and R. slancensis with similarity coefficient of 0.33. In UPGMA based clustering, R. brunonii was placed along with R. dumalis and similarly R. tomentosa and R . damascena cv. Jwala were placed together, though, they were placed distinctly but on the same coordinates by the principal component analysis. The higher degree of similarity between R. brunonii and R. dumalis was supported by both molecular and morpholgical data while that of between R. macrophylla and R. hybrida cv. Rose Sherbet and wild species as shown in the present study could not be supported by the morphological data based on Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability descriptors. Hence, Simple Sequence Repeat markers proved useful in identifying and assessing genetic relationships among cultivated species of rose, whereas, wild species need more robust dataset with still higher number of markers.