XVI International Botanical Congess

The taxonomy of the genus Stachys (>300 sp.) is very complex, because of the indistinct delimitation of species characteristics, the existence of transitional forms, etc. In order to find new diagnostic characters anatomy and morphology of nutlets, pollen morphology (by SEM), chromosome numbers and detailed structure of flowers of many of the species were studied. The obtained data enabled to clarify rank of supra specific taxa (e.g. it helped to justify the acceptance of Betonica as a distinct genus), to reveal some groups of affinity and to clear out positions of sections within the genus, etc. It was detected that same diagnostic features frequently determine of infra generic taxa of various rank. Within the genus Stachys convergence of character is met extremely frequent.