Abstract: Cerasus trees are famous ornamental plants in the world with a large number of cultivars, but the origin of most Cerasus cultivars are poorly known, resulting in some difficulties in cultivars classification. We analyzed the genetic relationships among 39 cultivars of Cerasus by intersimple sequence repeat(ISSR) molecular-marked technique, and screened 14 ISSR primers to assess the genomes of 39 cultivars of Cerasus. The result showed that a total of 109 DNA bands were amplified and 102 of which(93.58%) were polymorphic. The Nei’s genetic similarities of 39 cultivars ranged from 0.493 to 0.942 with the average of 0.727, suggesting that the genetic similarities among the 39 cultivars were relatively close. According to the Nei’s genetic similarity of 0.697, by UPGMA method cluster analysis, 39 cultivarss were classified into 2 cluster groups, and the group Ⅱ were classified into 4 subcluster groups with the genetic similarity of 0.738. The result not only supported the classification method of Kawasaki Tetsuya which classified Cerasus cultivars into 7 groups according their origin, but also showed that ISSR technique was applied to classify Cerasus cultivars. From cluster results, flower inflorescence, form and colour were important indicators for Cerasus cultivars classification.

Key words: Cerasus cultivars, ISSR, genetic relationships, UPGMA