Author(s): Rashmi TR, Soumya Murali and Francis MS

Abstract: The morphology based identification methods are usually time consuming and may sometimes lead to misidentification and may not always provide resolution at the species level. The phenotypic variability of the taxa may lead to misidentifications. In the case of plants, lack of vegetative states, make identification difficult. DNA sequencing has been used to explain evolutionary relationships for more than 20 years in molecular systematics. The aims of DNA barcoding include species identification of known specimens and discovery of unknown species for enhancing taxonomy for the good of science and society. Here, the study focussed on the DNA barcoding of the two species of Artemisia, which is reported from Kerala, namely, Artemisia nilagirica (C.B. Clarke) Pampan. and Artemisia japonica Thunb. using the five universal barcodes namely rbcL, matK, ITS, ITS2 and trnH-psbA. All the five barcodes yield good quality sequences.