Phylogenetic relationship and seed morphological characters of 11 species belong to Medicagoid Trigonella, six non Medicagoid and one species of each genera of Medicago and Melilotus were estimated before based on ITS sequences by using Baysian inference and maximum parsimony. In this paper, scanning Electron Microscope and stereomicroscope for seed morphological characters were used. Seed morphology results indicated that majority of Medicagoid Trigonella species belong to Bucerates and Lunatae sections placed in two close subclusters and joined together as did by Baysian analysis results. Both studies confirmed that Medicago radiata is sister for these species. Our results confirm that using molecular and morphological characters data are reliable evidence in systematic discriminations of the taxa.

Carpinus is a genus of the family Betulaceae that comprises 42 species worldwide. Moreover, more than a third of total Caspian forests are occupied by C. betulus and it has an important role in slope stabilizing. C. orientalis, commonly known as oriental hornbeam, is a small tree or often shrub, rarely over 10 m tall, and a major pioneer species on slopes in shallow humus-poor or rocky soils. This species is distributed from southeastern Europe to the north of Iran, from west to easternmost of the Hyrcanian forest. Due to their peculiar and beautiful fruit cluster, some hornbeams are used as important ornamental plants. Taxonomy of this genus has always been problematic in Iran and the number of species ranges from 2 to 4 in different taxonomic literature. In the current study, we applied morphometric (PCA and cluster analyses) and molecular (ITS region) approaches to delineate the species boundary of the genus in Iran. Thirty-six quantitative and qualitative characters were used for morphological analyses. The PCA plot of morphological data divided the studied population into three groups. However, the cluster analysis revealed two major groups. Moreover, Iranian species of the genus Carpinus formed two distinct clades in the molecular analyses. The results of the present study showed that there are two Carpinus species in Iran, including C. betulus and C. orientalis with two subspecies and C. schuschaensis is introduced as a synonym for C. orientalis subsp. macrocarpa. In addition, the intraspecific morphological diversity has blurred species boundaries.

Alhagi is a small genus of desert or semi-desert shrubs with about six species widely distributed throughout northern Africa, eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East to the Central Asia, and small parts of India and China. Despite previous molecular and morphological studies on the genus, the taxonomy of Alhagi has been remained controversial. In order to delimit natural groups as well as to clarify interspecific relationships of Alhagi species distributed in Iran, 45 ingroup taxa representing 30 accessions of the genus Alhagi and 15 species from the sister genera, as well as two species, namely, Astragalus arthuri and Colutea persica as outgroups were selected. The nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer was employed for phylogenetic reconstructions. Phylogenetic analyses were performed using maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference. The obtained results recovered Alhagi accessions as a well-supported monophyletic group. All three traditionally recognized species in Iran split into two distinct morphologically well-supported lineages similar to splits graph. The results showed that, Alhagi maurorum and A. graecorum are recognized as two distinct species distributed in two phytogeographical regions of Irano-Turanian and SaharoSindian. As a complementary taxonomic treatment, the diagnostic key and description of the species are also provided herewith.