Pyrus boissieriana appears to be a promising species for its use as rootstock for the commercial pear (P. communis L.) in lowland areas prone to drought and flooding. The current study was conducted on the evaluation of phenotypic diversity among 102 accessions of wild pear (P. boissieriana). The accessions studied showed significant differences in terms of all the measured characters. The leaf length ranged from 19.33 to 51.33mm and leaf width varied from 17.13 to 48.75 mm. The fruit length ranged from 8.26 to 22.51mm and the range of 10 fruit weight was from 2.48 to 72.00 g. Fruit weight showed positive correlations with bunch length, bunch weight, fruit length, and fruit width. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the first eight PCs explained 80.47% of the total variance and the characters such bunch weight, fruit length, fruit width, fruit diameter, fruit weight, and fruit flesh length were the key characters in the present data set, which differentiated the accessions belonging different areas. The dendrogram obtained based on the measured characters grouped the accessions into three main clusters and indicated the existence different levels of morphological variation among the accessions, which is applicable and useful for pear breeding programs. The finding obtained here confirmed that the northern and northeastern parts of Iran are rich sources of pear genetic diversity which this valuable gene pool should be in situ and ex situ conserved.
