The genetic structure of Hancornia speciosa (Apocynaceae) reveals two botanical varieties

Hancornia speciosa is an important native fruit tree species from Brazil, distributed in the Amazon, Cerrado, Caatinga and Atlantic Forest biomes. Six botanical varieties of H. speciosa have been described, although currently only two varieties ( pubescens and speciosa ) are recognized. However, there are no phylogenetic studies demonstrating the genetic relationships among the putative varieties. Here, we build a phylogenetic tree using trn H– psb A sequences from the chloroplast genome and analyze the genetic structure of six microsatellite loci from the nuclear genome. The results for the chloroplast sequence revealed 11 haplotypes, and the phylogenetic tree identified two main clades. The first clade included the botanical variety H . speciosa var . speciosa , while the other clade comprised the remaining putative varieties, which we recognized as H. speciosa var. pubescens. The microsatellite analysis also revealed two groups, one containing the botanical variety H . speciosa var. speciosa , and the other with the other putative botanical varieties. We concluded that the genetic diversity in H. speciosa is organized into two phylogenetic groups, supporting the classification of two botanical varieties.