A Statistical Approach to Species Identification on Morphological Traits of European White Oaks: Evidence of Morphological Structure in Italian Populations of Quercus Pubescens Sensu Lato

Statistical analyses are applied to investigate morphological relationships among 309 oak trees belonging to European white oaks. The method is based on discriminant analysis for the species assignment, using several morphological features of young twigs, buds, leaves and fruits. Discriminant functions are then used to compute the probability of each individual belonging to a species. The results indicate that Quercus frainetto, Q. petraea and Q. robur are clearly discriminated; Q. virgiliana and Q. pubescens are more related, but well distinguishable; for Q. dalechampii an own morphological pattern is not obtained. Subsequently the work focuses on the distribution of Q. pubescens and Q. virgiliana in central-southern Italy and on the morphological structure of their populations. It results that Q. pubescens is dominant in east-northern district of Italian peninsula, while Q. virgiliana dominates in the west-southern district.