Abstract: 17 species of Spiraea were selected as materials，using wall degradation hypotonic method to analyse the features of chromosome，to do associativity analysis and cluster analysis，to discuss the karyotype features and macroevolution. The results suggested that the 17 species of Spiraea had stable chromosome number，2n = 18 and 2n = 36，basic number of chromosome was 9，their chromosomes were mainly composed by median region chromosome（m）and submedian region chromosome（sm），in which there were satellites in Spiraea dasyantha，Spiraea chamaedryfolia and Spiraea canescens. Their karyotype types were 1A，1B，2B，their average arm ratio changes from 1.26 to 1.64，Lt/St changes from 1.67 to 3.51，centromeric index changes from 38.96% to 44.26%，A.s.k% changes from 56.14% to 60.69%. We sorted the evolution degree of 17 species of Spiraea from high to low according to the karyotype dissymmetry coefficient，in which S. media，S. dasyantha and S. canescens were high，S. thunbergii，S. chamaedryfolia and S. trilobata were low. The importance of karyotype parameters was A.s.k% > A.A.R > P.C.A% > Lt/St > karyotype type > centromeric index. There were differences of karyotype parameters in 17 species of Spiraea，karyotype datas could provide a base for the classification of Spiraea. Seventeen species of Spiraea could be divided into 4 groups by karyotype features cluster.

Key words: Spiraea L., karyotype, cluster analysis, genetic relationship