Abstract: The genetic diversity was analyzed by start codon targeted（SCoT）markers for 63 wild strainsof Pleurotus eryngii var. tuoliensis collected from three counties in Xinjiang Autonomous Region，China.A total of 147 bands were generated from nine SCoT primers，of which 92.52% was polymorphic，and each primer generated 15.11 bands in average. Nei’s genetic diversity index was 0.261. The similarity coefficient ranged from 0.612 to 0.932，and the average 0.772. These results revealed rich genetic diversity in the wild resources of P. eryngii var. tuoliensis. Principal coordinate analysis was identical to the cluster analysis. All the samples could be divided into three groups with their geographical origins，which indicated the genetic diversity related closely to geographical distribution for this organism. With the genetic distances assay，the genetic relationship for the samples collected from Yumin and Tuoli was the closest（GD = 0.086）and that from Tuoli and Qinghe was the farthest（GD = 0.156）among the three populations. Correlation analysis revealed latitudedistance，rather than longitude or geographical distance，was related to genetic distance.

Key words: Pleurotus eryngii var. tuoliensis, cluster analysis, principal coordinate analysis, genetic distance