Abstract:

Malus are important temperate ornamental plants, the cultivars classification of which is far from perfect. The paper made the cultivars investigation and recordation of Malus in Beijing on basis of field survey. This paper recorded 21 introduced cultivars from North America, 3 domestic cultivations and one domestic wild species, and made cluster analysis using DPS software with selected 20 traits. According to International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), the 25 crabapple varieties were divided into 4 major groups: the red double group, pink double group, dark univalve group and light univalve group. The Euclidean distance between every two cultivars was from 2.78 to 9.67, all 25 varieties can be distinguished; this result was consistent with the result of morphological classification. The framework embodied the content of binary classification and was consistent with the international laws and regulations.