Assessing botanical gardens specimens as a genetic resource for the future conservation - a pilot study using Magnolia delavayi in the gardens of Ireland

Collections of plants at the botanical gardens are storages of genetic resources. However, their genetic diversity is often limited, because there are only single or very few individual species of a plant. This study has assessed genetic material of small number of samples of Magnolia delavayi at the botanical gardens in Ireland and to establish whether they represent a single homogenous genepool or belong to distinct lineages. The results showed that specimens at the gardens contain two distinct genotypes. The historical data on the origin is unclear, but the DNA evidence suggests that the two lineages come from two different sources. A chloroplast DNA can be used to distinguish clones of Magnolia delavayi in the collections of the botanical gardens.