Juniperus thurifera is an important component of woodland communities of dry sites within the West Mediterranean region and is characterised by a strongly disjunctive geographic range. Two subspecies were recognised, subsp. thurifera in Europe and subsp. africana in Africa. The aim of the study was the comparison of phenetic diversity to the pattern of AFLP geographic differentiation of the species described in the literature. The examination of phenetic diversity was based on the biometrical analysis of 17 populations using 12 morphological characters of cone and seed. The differences among populations were analysed using Student's t test, analysis of discrimination, UPGMA agglomeration and hierarchical analysis of variance. The majority of morphological characters differentiated at a statistically significant level between populations and between J. thurifera subsp. thurifera and subsp. africana. Three groups of populations were detected using multivariate statistical analyses. The first, well separated, is subsp. africana, while the following two concern subsp. thurifera.The morphological differentiation of populations appeared similar to that described on the AFLP. The Gibraltar Straight appeared to be the most important barrier.

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Juniperus excelsa and J. thurifera are considered to originate from the same ancestor. As a result of occurring in geographically isolated refuges -J. excelsa in SE Europe and SW Asia and J. thurifera in SW Europe and NW Africa -their divergence could have taken place at the end of the Tertiary, with the climate cooling. Juniperus foetidissima occurs in SE Europe and SW Asia in territories shared with J. excelsa and is similar to and sometimes misidentified with it. The occurrence of the latter two species over the same area suggests they should be more similar to each other than to the geographically distant J. thurifera. Four populations of J. excelsa ssp. excelsa, four of J. thurifera and two of Juniperus foetidissima were examined on the basis of features of 10 cones and 10 shoots of 18-36 specimens each. Results of discrimination analysis, Mahalanobis distances and cluster analysis showed great similarity to J. excelsa and J. thurifera, while J. foetidissima was more distant. The results support the hypothesis of a common ancestor of J. excelsa and J. thurifera, but suggest another origin of J. foetidissima.

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The characters of Quercus robur and Q. petraea leaves are of main taxonomic value and the adult trees of both species can be distinguished on them. However, young individuals, mostly seedlings but also saplings, are told to be undistinguishable or only partly distinguishable on the leaf morphology. The aim of the study was to verify this hypothesis on the basis of biometrical analyses of leaf characteristics of adults trees and saplings in two mixed oak woods, one located close to the northeastern limit, the other about 400 km inside of the Q. petraea range in Poland. The analysis of discriminations and minimum spanning tree on the squares of Mahalanobis distances were analysed to find differences between Q. robur, Q. petraea and intermediate adults and saplings. The differences between saplings of Q. robur and Q. petraea were found lower than between adult trees. Nevertheless, the biometrical analysis confirmed determination of saplings in the field.