In the present study, the diversity of 11 Thymus species was assessed using molecular and morphological markers. Essential oil content and morphological traits were also investigated during two agronomic years. The result of the analysis of variance showed considerable differences among morphological traits. In the first and second years, the essential oil content of the species varied from 0.63 to 1.94% and 0.86 to 2.34%, respectively. T. vulgaris and T. migricus showed the highest essential oil content in two agronomic years. In this research, nine ISSR primers were also used to amplify 151 polymorphic bands in 77 accessions belonging to 11 Thymus species. Cluster and principal component (PCA) analyses classified the species in three major groups. Among the species, T. vulgaris and T. fedtschenkoi presented relatively higher genetic distance in comparison with other species. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed that 72.34% of the total variation was belonged to within-species variation, while 27.66% was associated among the species. High gene flow (Nm = 1.11) and genetic differentiation (Gst = 0.31) were also observed among the species. T. transcaspicus exhibited the highest genetic variation (0.19), polymorphism % (57.69%), and Shannon index (0.29). The STRUCTURE analysis also showed a high admixture of Thymus species that might be originated from a high rate of natural hybridization. Finally, based on molecular and morphological information, T. vulgaris and T. carmanicus can be suggested as good candidate species for further breeding programs in Thymus species.

在本研究中，使用分子和形态标志物评估了11种胸腺物种的多样性。在两个农艺年中还研究了精油含量和形态性状。方差分析的结果表明形态特征之间存在相当大的差异。在第一年和第二年，该物种的精油含量分别为0.63至1.94％和0.86至2.34％。寻常型T. migricus和寻常型T. migricus在两个农艺学年中显示出最高的精油含量。在这项研究中，九种ISSR引物也被用于扩增属于11个胸腺的77个部分中的151个多态性条带种类。聚类和主成分（PCA）分析将物种分为三个主要类别。间的物种，T.寻常和T. fedtschenkoi与其他物种相比呈现相对较高的遗传距离。分子变异分析（AMOVA）显示，总变异的72.34％属于物种内部变异，而物种之间的变异为27.66％。在该物种中还观察到高基因流量（Nm = 1.11）和遗传分化（Gst = 0.31）。T.transcaspicus表现出最高的遗传变异（0.19），多态性％（57.69％）和Shannon指数（0.29）。结构分析还显示百里香的高混合可能源自高自然杂交率的物种。最后，根据分子和形态学信息，可以将寻常型T. carmanicus和T. carmanicus用作胸腺物种进一步育种计划的良好候选物种。