Abstract: Twenty-eightM alus halliana Koehne cultivars and fifty2one characters were selected for the numerical classification on the basis of investigation in Henan. Q cluster analysis showed that the number of petal and shape of fruitswere served as the group classification criteria. Thus M. halliana cultivarswere separated into three groups: Single annulus group, round fruit group, pear shape fruit group. The single annulus group evolvement to round fruit group, then evolvement to pear shape fruit group. Besides, the analysis also
showed that the other characters such as flower diameter, fruit size, the growth state of footstalk and fruit peduncle, shoot thorn, the length of burgeon under anthotaxy, the color and floss of young leaf at the time of
bloom, the color of flower thread and so on, were served as the cultivar classification criteria. R cluster analysis showed that the fifty-one characters had independent influences on the genetic relationship except leaf length and leafstalk length of young leaf (r=0.897) , mature leaf length and the space from leafwidth to leaf end (r=0.847) , flower diameter and petal length (r= 0.761) , mature leaf length and leaf middle width (r=0.721) , the ratio of fruit vertical length to fruit horizontal length ang fruit shape ( r = 01710) , the num
ber of petal and anther color (r=0.747). All the studies could play a guided role in the selection of classification characteristics of ornamental species of Malus.

Key words: Malus halliana Koehne, cultivar, numerical classification, cluster analysis