Integrating morphological characters, molecular markers, and distribution patterns to assess the identity of Blepharis species from Jordan

Botanical Studies

Table 1 Linear discriminant (LD) axis loadings of 14 morphological characteristics measured in Blepharis plants from three populations in Jordan

Trait	LD axis 1	LD axis 2	F	P value
Leaf
Length	− 0.068	0.211	1.9	0.161
Width	− 0.140	− 0.687	0.4	0.644
# Teeth per margin	− 0.120	− 0.272	0.2	0.806
Spike
Internode length	2.007	1.249	169.3	< 0.001
Bract length	0.628	− 0.450	20.6	< 0.001
Bract width	− 1.717	1.076	134.7	< 0.001
# of veins per bract	− 0.352	0.257	14.9	< 0.001
# of lateral spines per bract side	− 0.017	− 1.296	57.3	< 0.001
Length of the longest lateral spine	− 0.081	− 1.335	43.9	< 0.001
Anterior stamen
Filament length	− 0.284	− 0.873	1.6	0.209
Anther length	− 0.040	− 0.190	0.1	0.944
Appendage length	0.149	0.466	1.3	0.274
Posterior stamen
Filament length	0.282	0.429	0.02	0.983
Anther length	− 0.058	0.142	0.6	0.528

Larger F values represent stronger differentiation among Blepharis groups and significant P values are in italics