Abstract

Ten flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) cultivars were evaluated for phenotypic characters including resistance to spot anthracnose and dogwood canker, susceptibility to frost damage, leaf color, bract length and color, bloom number and reproductive phenology. Cultivars differed by at least three phenotypic characters except for ‘Barton’ and ‘Cloud 9’, which when compared with each other, were not significantly different at any characteristic. DNA amplification fingerprinting (DAF) using 17 octamer oligonucleotide primers could not distinguish these cultivars. Furthermore, arbitrary signatures from amplification profiles (ASAP), a technique that produces ‘fingerprints of fingerprints’, which is capable of detecting more differences than DAF, also failed to reveal any polymorphic DNA. Therefore, based on the lack of phenotypic and genetic differences between these two cultivars, we conclude that they are the same genotype.