Abstract: Ixeris polycephala is a member of the Asteraceae family with an annual growth habit and excellent forage quality. In order to construct DNA fingerprinting of 14 I. polycephala varieties, 24 EST-SSR primers and 32 SRAP primers were screened for clear bands and high polymorphic imformation. A total of 270 bands including 223 polymorphic bands were amplified from the 24 EST-SSR primers, and the polymorphism information content values were up to 0.834. The Nei’s gene diversity (H) values ranged from 0.2464 to 0.4288, and values for Shannon’s information index (I) ranged from 0.3597 to 0.6148, while the number of distinguished varieties ranged from 3 to 14. For the 32 SRAP primers, 367 polymorphic bands were detected, and the average polymorphism information content was 0.826. The Nei’s gene diversity (H) values ranged from 0.2006 to 0.3898, and values for Shannon’s information index (I) ranged from 0.3167 to 0.5716, while the number of distinguished varieties ranged from 2 to 12. Nine varieties produced unique bands from 7 primers. With more detailed consideration of each genetic diversity index, a total of 40 polymorphic bands were obtained from 5 core primers (IpSSR102, IpSSR80, IpSSR91, Me10+Em5, Me9+Em17), and for DNA fingerprinting of the 14 I. polycephala varieties each variety had a specific molecular or DNA fingerprint.

Key words: Ixeris polycephala, EST-SSR marker, SRAP marker, core primer, DNA fingerprinting