| A DNA barcode consists of a standardized short sequence of DNA (400-800bp) used to identify the taxonomic species a small organic fragment belongs to. Even though it has been easy to discriminate animal species by using the mitochondrial gene _cox1_, this is still difficult for plants seeing that the mitochondrial genome is not variable enough on the species level. During the Second International Barcode of Life Conference in Tapei (September 2007), different plastid regions were proposed as potential plant DNA barcodes, such as _atpF-atpH_ and _psbK-psbI_, but no consensus on which region to use was reached during the meeting. The largest plant DNA barcoding study to date proposed _matK_ as the best candidate and suggested that in combination with... |
