Assessment of the DNA Barcodes Characteristic of Phalaenopsis deliciosa based on matK, rbcL, and ITS

Abstract

Indonesia has high biodiversity for plant species, including orchids with medicinal potential such as Phalaenopsis deliciosa. Generally, morphological characters, especially in flowers are used for orchids identification. However, when the plants are not in the flowering period, the identification becomes difficult. Therefore an alternative method, such as molecular identification (DNA barcoding) needs to be applied for the best solution. This research, which was conducted with three different markers found that the identity level of matK, rbcL, and ITS to other orchids species was 99-98%, 98%, and 94-96%, respectively. Furthermore, matK and ITS showed high specificity for Phalaenopsis deliciosa, and are therefore recommended as the best molecular identification marker of genus Phalaenopsis.