| Lotus, an ancient plant, is one of the earliest plant species derived from angiosperms. It is a dicotyledon plant in spite of some monocotyledonous characters. Studies based on embryo genesis show that, not only lotus plumule has special structure, but also the genesis of chloroplast develops a different pathway from others, indicating that Nelumbo might have an unique position in phylogeny of the angiosperm.Nelumbo was placed in Ranales Nymphaeaceae by traditional taxonomy from the year 1736.With the deepening-knowledge, Nelumbo has been put in Nelumbonales Nelumbonaceae for the sake of many unique characteristics that differ from Nymphaeaceae. Two species have been survived in Nelumbo: N. nucifera and A', lutea. The former mainly distributes in south-east Asia, and America is the main area of the later. Some reports demonstrate that the botany in the two area has close relationship. In contrast to .V. lutea, N. nucifera has wider distribution, longer cultural history and more cultivars.The study selected four qualitative and eight quantitative characters and RAPD techniques, to cluster 38 lotus cultivars , and gained three cluster-trees. The results were as follows:1. Cluster analysis of qualitative characters divided the cultivars into three groups. Group I . which consisted of four sub-groups, including F-lotus(a group with ornamental purpose). S-lotus(a group with seed producing) and N.lutea. Twenty-seven cultivars made up Group I . and Group II and GroupIII comprised seven cultivars and four ones respectively. As values of plant height, length and width of leaf were concerned, Group I was higher than Group II. But the former was lower when length of main stem of lotus root(Lm), weight of main stem of lotus root(Wm) and weight of whole lotus root (Ww)were considered. GroupIII were the highest in all characters mentioned above. All cultivars in Group I and GroupIII were long-barreled (ratio of length and diameter of the section from the second knot to the third of the main stem of lotus root is over 3,Lst/Dst=Rld) while Group II included short-barreled cultivars(Rld<3).The index of Wm:Ww was the highest in GroupIII. andlowest in Group I . Yellow, red and white were flower colors of cultivars in Group I , and Group II and III were red cultivars. As far as color of lotus root was considered, white was dominant in Group I ; white-yellow and yellow were the colors of Group II; GroupIII were all white cultivars. Except that the two cultivars "Dasajin" and "Baiwanlian" were Mp (a character of some F-lotus cultivars with more than 200 petals),other cultivars in the experiment were Lp (a character of cultivars with less than 200 petals).2. Cluster analysis of quantitative characters divided the cultivars into three groups. Eleven cultivars were clustered in Group I , and nineteen cultivars in Group II, eight cultivars in GroupIII. N.lutea. F-lotus and S-lotus were classified in GroupII. Despite Lst and Ww were subtly higher than GroupIII , Group II was lower as the characters plant height, length and width of leaf, Dst were considered. Rid of Group II were higher than the cultivars" in Group I and GroupIII. According to the ratio of Wm/Ww (Rmw),Group I and GroupIII were lower. White was the main flower color of Group I except some red cultivars; Red and white flower cultivars gathered in Group II , and GroupIII had white ones. As the color of lotus root was concerned, all cultivars in Group I were white; white, faint yellow and white-yellow were found in Group II, and GroupIII were all white .When apex color of lotus were observed, faint yellow, yellow, and orange yellow were found in Group I , with faint yellow in Group II, and yellow and faint yellow in GroupIII .3. The results of RAPD showed that, the eleven lObp random primers selected might effectively separate the 38 cultivars. Total 126 loci were amplified, and 71 ones of these were polymorphic(56.35%).Cluster analysis divided all materials into three groups. Twenty seven cultivars clustered in Group I were R-lotus (a group with...
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