Figure 1

Most parsimonious atpB-rbcL phylogram (in the inset) and one of the most parsimonious ITS phylogram. Branches conserved in the strict consensus ITS tree are thicker. Bootstrap values are indicated bellow the branches. ITS sequences of 43 Ilex species [3] are indicated by their species name followed by their GC content (in %) and by their DNA accession code in GenBank. ITS sequences of I. perado and I. canariensis collected in Tenerife are indicated by a species code ("per" and "can") and 3 numbers: "can 41_1_45" means I. canariensis specimen 41, clone 1, with a GC content of 45%. Clone 0 means that the sequence was read directly from the PCR product. Specimen "can 28B" represents the shorter PCR product found in specimen 28 of I. canariensis, cut out from agarose gel (see Figure 3). The average GC content is indicated for each clades of the ITS tree. Circled numbers refer to clades discussed in the text (see Figure 4). Bold characters indicate ITS sequences with no substitution at conserved 5.8S sites (see results). Black dots indicate ITS sequences studied in more details (see results). The asterisk indicates an alternative position of the GC 45% clade.