MOLECULAR VARIABILITY OF ROSA DAMASCENA MILL . GROWING IN TAIF REGION OF SAUDI ARABIA

Approximately 700 bp of the cpDNA maturaseK gene were amplified and sequenced for Rosa damascena inhabiting four distant localities of the western Saudi Arabia in order to address their genetic framework and origin. The different samples acquired identical gene sequence. The obtained sequences were compared with their counterparts from greenhouse R. damascena samples and other related taxa by using maximum-parsimony, neighbor-joining and maximum-likelihood methods. One tree was executed in which all samples showed sister relationship to greenhouse samples and to R. moschata. Some other greenhouse samples and R. gallica were shown to be out of this cluster, but they were sister to their clade. It is most likely that the R. damascena possibly originated from R. moschata and/or hybridization of R. moschata × R. gallica. Introduction Among 200 Rosa species, half of them distributed in Asia (Fougère-Danezan et al. 2015), Rosa damascena stands very important. Flowers of R. damascena are economically important for perfumes as well as for ornamental, cosmetic and pharmaceutical purposes (Guimaraes et al. 2010). Hybridization and morphological homogeneity make it difficult to identify the species of this genus. It was believed also that Rosa damascena was first introduced from Middle East to the western of Europe and this reintroduction happened twice (Beales et al. 1998). Taif is a tourist region in the central west of Saudi Arabia with high altitude and temperate weather all over the year. The city is characterized with high cultivation of the Damask Rose (Rosa × damascena trigintipetala) which is traditionally called Ward Altaifi. There are two varieties of Damask rose, such as autumn Damask rose (R. × damascena sempervirens) and Damask rose Kazanlik (Rosa × damascena trigintipetala). It has been suggested that Ward Altaifi was cultivated in Taif region as Bulgarian “kazanlik” strain brought from Balkans 600 years ago by Turks who occupied Arabia in 14th century (El-Assal et al. 2014). Different molecular studies have been conducted for addressing the phylogenetic and genetic framework of the genus. These studies were based on RAPD data (Wissemann and Ritz 2005, Bruneau et al. 2007 and Qiu 2012), microsatellites (Scariot et al. 2006) and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) data (Koopman et al. 2008). DNA sequences-based phylogenetic studies were also conducted in Rosa (Bruneau et al. 2007, Shaw et al. 2007, Fougère-Danezan et al. 2015). However, variability within Ward Altaifi and its genetic relationship to the closely related species and varieties are poorly investigated. Only a few studies have recently conducted on these points (El-Assal et al. 2014, Amer et al. 2016). Intraspecific and interspecific hybridization within the genus make the phylogentic resolution of this species more difficult (Fougère-Danezan et al. 2015). The present study, therefore, aimed at investigating the genetic variability within Ward Altaifi and to address its phylogenetic origin molecularly. *Author for correspondence: . Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt; College of Forensic Sciences, Naif Arab University For Security Sciences, 6830, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.