The relationships between the populations of Atractylodes lancea (Thunb )DC were analyzed with the method of random amplified
polymorphic DNA(RAPD) Choosing 10 primers of 10 base oligonucleotide to amplify the DNA of A lancea which have 10 populations and contain 83 individuals, 100 fragments were obtained Using RAPD
distance software, the Jaccard's distance was caculated and listed in the form of distance's matrix, and from which the dendrograms were drawn using the methods of nearest neighbor
clustering, furthermost neighbor clustering and UPGMA separately The results showed that the 10 populations could be divided into 3 clusters, namely cluster 1
, cluster 2 and cluster 3 Furthermore, among the three clusters the distance between cluster 2 and cluster 3 was obviously nearer than the distance between cluster 2 and cluster 1 or the distance between cluster 3 and cluster 1 According to this result and that reported elsewhere by other workers concerning the essential oil components, it was suggested that cluster 1 should be listed alone from the south A lancea