Morfometric Studies on the 14 species of Thymus L.(Lamiaceae) in Iran

According to the “Flora Iranica”¡ the Thymus genus has 14 species in Iran but only 18 species are reported in Iran. Due to the high similarities and wide variation of the morphological characters¡ identification of these species is very difficult. In this study the Thymus genus were grouping according to the morphological characteristics and theire species were grouping according to the diagnostic characters.We chose 33 morphological ( vegetative and generative) characters for 88 samples of 14 species. Analysis of variance between groups showed that the characteristics had significant differences (about 1%). The groups comparison showed that the morphological characteristics of this species¡ are efficient for distinguish them. So the Thymus persicus species were separated of other species according to the wide leaves character¡ also the T. trautvetteri trait were separated according to the stem cross-section from the other species. Specie of T. kotchyanus the length of peduncle and T. migricus the length of calyx were distinct from other species. Comparison of mean density of the trichome between¡ T. trautvetteri and T. persicus also be separated them from other species.