**4. Discussion**

18 Agricultural Science

Table 3. Genetic similarity between 11 cultivars of *H. psittacorum* and interspecific hybrids of

the UFRPE Heliconia Germplasm Collection used in this study

It was not possible to obtain DNA with acceptable quality from *Heliconia* using the conventional methodology, as mentioned by Kumar *et al*. (1998), in an earlier study with molecular markers in heliconia.
