ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="Mon, 06 Jan 1990 00:00:01 GMT"> <META content="text/html; charset=windows-1250" http-equiv=Content-Type> <TITLE>Department of Taxonomy of Vascular Plants</TITLE> <STYLE> A:link{TEXT-DECORATION:none} A:active{TEXT-DECORATION:none} A:visited{TEXT-DECORATION:none} A:hover{COLOR:#cc0066;TEXT-DECORATION:none} </STYLE> </head> <body link=#527D49 vlink=#527D49 alink=#527D49 topmargin=5 background=bcg2.gif> <blockquote> <p><font color="#333366" size="2" face="Verdana"> <font color="#709B63" size="4"> <a name="picris">Infraspecific</a> variation of the polymorphic species <em>Picris hieracioides</em> in central and southern Europe</font><br> <br> <strong>Period of time: </strong>2004 - 2006<br> <strong>Financial support:</strong> Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education of Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences (VEGA, Vedecká grantová agentúra Ministerstva akolstva SR a Slovenskej akadémie vied), Slovak Republic<br> <strong>Principal investigator: </strong> <a href="http://ibot.sav.sk/Marek/Marek.html"><font color="#333366"> Marek Slovák</font></a><br> <strong>Participant: </strong> <a href="http://ibot.sav.sk/Karol01.html"><font color="#333366"> Karol Marhold</font></a> <br> <br> <strong>Results</strong><br> During all three years of our project we have acquired significant amount of information considering mainly morphological variation of <em>P. hieracioides</em> group from overall European area. Our present results of morphological evaluation indicate, that two observed morphological types could be treated as two separated taxa on the species level (after conformation by molecular analyses). Moreover, in the case of  mountain morphotype later division on subspecies level seems to be possible. Morphological separation of <em>P. hieracioides</em> group was clearly revealed also by cultivation experiments. Striking moment of this study was affirmation of sexual, strictly self-incompactible mode of reproduction and thus, upset autogammy and agamospermy. This fact conspicuously influence the treatrment of phylogeny and variation of whole studied gruop as well as it s evolution relationships to closely related taxa. There was recorded interesting tendencies in morphological variation of endemic species <em>P. hispidissima</em>, as well as detection of intermingled populations with <em>P. hieracioides</em> group, where morphologicly intermediate (putative hybrids) individuals were observed.</p> </blockquote> </BODY> </HTML>