Abstract
Duranta erecta L. is one of the most important plants used in landscaping with many medicinal properties though not studied well. Several reports have been previously published on the variations in this species leading to various taxa names. The methanol extracts were analysed by GC-MS in order to identify specific compounds unique to the different forms that exists. Eighty-nine compounds were scored for the eight forms, carboxylic acids and alcohol occupied the most abundant compounds and ketone, aldehyde, alkane, alkene, alkyne, nitrile, ester, amide, epoxide and heterocyclic compounds were also detected. All the eight forms revealed similarity percentage value lower than 50% and the highest value for the compounds was observed between variegated yellow and variegated yellow double (VY X VYD 32.14%) and the lowest between variegated white and thorny green (VW X TG 14.08%). The Cluster Analysis (CA) revealed that all the variegated forms cluster together while the broad green, yellow bush and green bush form another cluster. The thorny green remains in isolation from other forms and standing as the major cluster two. On PC1 highest score was correlated with TG form while others had values with negative scores. In component 2 (PC2), highest score is correlated with YV, VW, VYD and VY which are morphologically similar while others had negative scores. GC-MS was successfully employed in this study to classify the forms therein proposing as hybrids using the multivariate analysis.