SURVEY OF DIOSPYROS SPP. FOR CONSIDERING THE ORIGIN OF DIOSPYROS KAKI AND ITS EVALUTIONAL PROCESS FOR CULTIVATION

有报道表明，桃叶薯蓣（Diospyros kaki）与荷花薯蓣（D. lotas）、油叶薯蓣（D. oleifera）和腺薯蓣（D. glandullosa）亲缘关系密切。除了这三个种外，我们还在中国南方和泰国、越南北部山区发现了一些与kaki亲缘关系较近的Diospyros属植物，这些地区被认为是kaki的起源地。由于我们的探索，我们发现了几个Diospyros物种，其中我们澄清了一些物种在形态上与D. kaki非常接近。来自中国的“叶茂石”和来自越南的“红玉”是我们感兴趣的两个物种。其中“叶茂石”是最有趣的物种，因为它的形态与D. kaki非常接近。对叶茅石在中国各植物园的分布进行了标本调查，明确地表明该物种仅分布于云南省。我们还发现“叶茂石”可能是二倍体，与莲花、油叶和腺花一样。我们需要进一步的分子分析来明确该物种与木豆的系统发育位置，并考虑该物种与栽培木豆外观的关系。

There is a report to show that Diospyros kaki is closely related to D. lotus, D. oleifera, and D. glandulosa. In addition to these three species, we started to find some Diospyros spp. having close relationships to D. kaki in the area of South China and Northern mountain regions of Thailand and Vietnam where D. kaki (cultivated kaki) thought to be originated. Due to our exploration, we found several species of Diospyros, among which we clarified that some species have morphologically very close features to D. kaki. “Ye-mao-shi” from China and “Hong Coc” from Vietnam are two species in our interests. Especially, “Ye-mao-shi” is the most interesting species because of its very close morphology to D. kaki. When the distribution of “Ye-mao-shi” was investigated by specimen survey in botanical gardens in China, it clearly showed that this species aredistributed only in Yunnan province. We also showed a possibility that “Ye-mao-shi” is diploid, as the same as D. lotus, D. oleifera, and D. glandulosa. We need further investigations using molecular analyses to clarify the phylogenetic position of this species to D. kaki and to consider the involvement of this species for appearance of cultivated kaki.