Thirty superior trees of Chinese fir from eight provinces were analyzed on genetic variation with RAPD method.A total of 284 bands,including 190 polymorphic ones,were produced with 26 primers, and mean genetic distance between the thirty superior trees was 0.4909,indicating a high level of genetic diversity among the tress tested.Two superior trees,coded as ZJZ 01 and JXS26,showed a high value in genetic similarity,which meant that only one of them could be essentially preserved in gene bank.The clustering analysis indicated that most of the superior trees could be clustered at a relatively high genetic distance and rich genetic variation could be expected in the superior tree population.This might be valuable for marker-assisted germplasm collection,parent grouping in hybridization and genetic diversity evaluation on breeding materials in improvement of Chinese fir.
