Artemisia systematics and phylogeny: Cytogenetic and molecular insights

Abstract

is a large genus, one of the largest genera in its family. It is comprised of about 500 taxa at the specific or subspecific level, distributed in 5 sections or subgenera. Most species are perennial and many are landscape dominants of arid or semiarid regions. Artemisia is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere but poorly represented in the Southern Hemisphere. It is more richly represented in Eurasia than it is in North America. A number of Artemisia species have a high economic value for food, medicine, forage, ornamentals, and other uses. Some taxa are invasive weeds, which can adversely affect harvests. Even though some features (carpological and palynological ones) are quite constant and characteristic of the genus, a high degree of morphological variation exists. Artemisia has two basic chromosome numbers, with ploidy levels ranging from diploid to dodecaploid for x = 9 and from diploid to hexaploid for x = 8. Polyploidy and dysploidy are two very relevant