Abstract:
Among carnivorous plant families, Nepenthaceae is a very peculiar family which has only one
genus, Nepenthes. In Sri Lanka, this genus is represented by a single endemic species;
Nepenthes distillatoria L. (1753). In that aspect, this plant has a key taxonomic value in Sri
Lankan flora. This study was intended to identify the phylogenetic position and to establish a
relationship between N. distillatoria and other selected carnivorous plant species of
Nepenthaceae using rbcL sequences. DNA was extracted from leaves of N. distillatoria and
subsequent PCR amplification of the rbcL region was performed. The amplified PCR products
were subjected to DNA sequencing. The rbcL sequence alignments were constructed using
MEGA v.7.0 and phylogenetic analyses were carried out under the Maximum Likelihood
method. This study mainly introduces the partial coding sequence of the rbcL gene of N.
distillatoria. The reconstructed phylogenetic tree based on the sequence results revealed that
N. ventricosa, N. merrilliana, N. khasiana, N. bellii, and N. fusca are closely related species to
N. distillatoria.
