Tragopogon L. (Cichorioideae, Lactuceae, Scorzonerinae) is an Old World genus with 150 species, Rechinger in Flora Iranica divided this genus in 13 section and 37 species that 26 species of them are exist in Iran. Safavi et al. divided it into 26 species without sections in flora Iran. Despite the anatomical and molecular studies done around the world, the exact classification of this genus is not clear due to the high number of secret species, hybridization, polyploidy and rapid diversification. The morphology studies of 32 species and Molecular studies (ISSR, ITS, cp DNA) of 22 species of the genus Tragopogon was investigated. The purpose of these studies are classification and determination of interspecific relationship in this genus. Sections of Rubriflori, Sosnowskya, Chromopappus, Majores, Angustissimi, Krascheninnikovia in flora of Iranica are confirmed on the basis of morphometry and molecular data. Section of Profundisulcati in flora Iranica is confirmed on the base of morphometry data. The Species of T. jesdianus, T. porphyrocephalus, T. rezaiyensis and T. Stroterocarpus in the flora of Iranica are not classified in any section which we classified in the Rubriflori section, Cp DNA dendrogram are not useful for classification in this genus and Chloroplast sequences are very similar among Tragopogon species, Therefore, the use of cp DNA markers in the classification of this genus is not recommended.

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Tragopogon L. (Cichorioideae, Lactuceae, Scorzonerinae) is an Old World genus with 150 species. Pollen morphology has proved useful in the systematics of some genera and species of Asteraceae as well as in that of some of its genera and species. The pollen morphology of 24 taxa of the genus Tragopogon was investigated in detail by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The pollen grain type ranged from suboblate, oblate-spheroidal to prolate-spheroidal in equatorial view and hexagonal, obtuse-hexagonal to hexagonal-angular in polar view. In this study separation of the species of the sections Majores, Profundisulcati, Sosnovsky, Chromopappus, Rubriflori according to Flora Iranica is presented from the other species of Tragopogon. T. jezdianus, T. porphyrocephalus, T. rezaiyensis are suggested to belong to Rubriflori section. The results indicate that the palynological characters of the genus Tragopogon are valuable for taxonomic applications and are useful for classification.

The genus Tragopogon L. with about 110-150 species is distributed in Asia and Europe, while it is represented by 26 species in Iran. Hybridization and polyploidy occurs in the genus Tragopogon that bring about extensive morphological variation in its species. Tragopogon buphthalmoides (Asteraceae) is a perennial herb with common Persian name "Sheng e Iran" and "Sheng e cheshmgaavi" and is used as traditional medicine. Two varieties have been cited for this species in the country, but due to extensive morphological variability, it is difficult to delimit the two varieties. Therefore, the present study was performed to delimit these varieties by using both morphological and molecular markers (cpDNA and ISSRs). We also aimed to provide data on population genetics of the studied species due to its medicinal importance. In total 134 plant specimens of T. buphthalmoides were randomly collected from 16 geographical populations in 7 provinces. The studied plants were considered as two different varieties based on morphological criteria and were subjected to numerical and phylogenetic analyses. PCOA plot of morphological data, identified some plants with intermediate characters. Moreover, MDS plot of ISSR data and ML tree of cpDNA sequences, did not separate plants of the two varieties and the plants were placed intermixed. Therefore, we consider T. buphthalmoides as a single species with extensive morphological variability and it is complex species. Population genetic study identified four genetic groups in the country, while, STRUCTURE analysis based on admixture 776