Abstract: ISSR-PCR was used to assess the genetic diversity of six wild populations Sinowilsonia fienryi Hemsl, along with two cultivated populations including 75 test materials. We detected 85 polymorphic bands from total 89 bands with 10 primers, and the percentage of polymorphic bands (PPB) was 95.5% indicating that S.fienryi Hemsl had a high level of genetic diversity at species level. Nei’s gene diversity (H), Shannon’s information index (I), the coefficient of gene differentiation (G_st) and the percentage of total variance among and within populations were 0.2833, 0.403 4, 0.350 7, 25.49% and 74.51%, respectively, indicating that there was a significant genetic differentiation both within and between the populations, and genetic diversity was mainly derived from the differentiation within populations. With UPGMA dendrogram, at the specify threshold of 0.87, S.fienryi Hemsl species were separated into three clusters, and most individuals from same habitat were clustered, indicating that there might be a rule between clustering analysis and geographical distribution.

Key words: Sinowilsonia fienryi Hemsl, genetic diversity, ISSR