Species relationships in Bulnesia as shown by seed protein electrophoresis

The seed proteins of seven species of Bulnesia were studied by polyacrylamide electrophoresis. Some of the bands are characteristic and constant “markers” of each species; these allow the unequivocal identification of their electrophoregrams. In total 84 different bands were identified. These were treated numerically by cluster analysis. There were no constant differences between geographic races of B. arborea from Colombia and Venezuela. The electrophoregram of B. carrapo shows differences with that of B. arborea giving support to the idea that both taxa are separate allopatric species. The species pair B. foliosa-B. schickendantzii present the most similar electrophoregrams; this determines a short taxonomic distance between them in the phenogram. The Prim network shows the supposedly more primitive species (B. arborea, B. carrapo and B. bonariensis) well separated from the more advanced group (B. schickendantzii, B. foliosa and B. retama). B. sarmientoi, however, appears as rather distant and unrelated from all other taxa. In general, the results from protein electrophoresis agree with results from a previous numerical study based on 43 morphological characters.