Artocarpus (Moraceae) is a paleotropical genus comprised of approximately 50 species native to the lowlands of Southeast Asia and Oceania. The species are primarily large monoecious, latex producing trees with a syncarpous fruit that may attain very large sizes in some of the species (i.e. A. heterophyllus, jackfruit and A. altilis, breadfruit). In the most recent revision of the genus Jarrett (1959) divided Artocarpus into two subgenera based on leaf arrangement and stipule attachment and further subdivisions were based on fruit and laminar characters. However, molecular and phylogenetic studies are still lacking for the genus. Additionally, Jarrett was unable to resolve the historically confused systematics of breadfruit, an important starch crop in Oceania. Three very closely related Artocarpus species must be considered in this matter. Artocarpus altilis is the cultivated primarily seedless breadfruit, A. camansi is a wild species native to New Guinea and possibly the Philippines and the Moluccas as well, and A. mariannensis is endemic to Micronesia. The great morphological variability and overlap of characters that exist within and among these taxa has made species delineation and breadfruit origins unclear leading Jarrett to lump all three taxa into one species called A. communis. Sequence data from both ITS (internal transcribed spacers) and the trnL-F region (intron plus spacer) for 25 ingroup and six outgroup taxa were analyzed using parsimony analysis. The results suggest that Artocarpus is monophyletic, but do not entirely support Jarrett's circumscription of the genus. As the sequence variation was not great enough to resolve issues concerning breadfruit systematics and origins, AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphisms) analysis was employed at this level. The AFLP data set suggests that Artocarpus camansi and A. mariannensis are distinct species, which are both implicated in the origin of the cultivated A. altilis.

Key words: AFLP, Artocarpus, breadfruit, Moraceae, Pacific