Introduction Among the PCR-based molecular techniques, Random Amplifi ed Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) is convenient in performance and does not require any information about the DNA sequence to be amplifi ed (Weder, 2002). Providing its simplicity, the use of RAPD as molecular markers for taxonomic, systematic analysis of plants, as well as in plant breeding and the study of genetic relationships, has considerably increased (Arif et al., 2010). The objective of this study was to evaluate, by using random amplifi ed polymorphic DNA markers, the genetic relationship among a wild population of O. vulgare subsp. vulgare (one of the most variable species of the genus) from the spontaneous fl ora of Moldova. Material and methods Seven genotypes of O. vulgare subsp. vulgare, marked conventionally with numbers from one to seven, collected from a natural site in Orheiul Vechi (60 kilometers  to the north-east of Chişinău), were used for this study. Genomic DNA from young leaves was isolated using 2% CTAB buffer. Decamer RAPD primers (OPA2, OPA9, OPB01, OPG05, OPK17, UBC250 and OPA19) were tested.RAPD-PCR conditions were: initial DNA denaturation for 5 min. at 95ºC, followed by 35 cycles, each consisting of 1 min. at 95ºC, 1 min. at 34– 36ºC, extension was carried out 1 min. at 72ºC and fi nal extension at 72ºC for 3 min. Results and discussions Tested primers generated a total of 257 RAPD fragments of which 40 (15.6%) were polymorphic. The maximum number of amplicons was found at genotype 6 (46 amplicons), followed by genotype 3 (41 amplicons) and 5 (with 38 amplicons). The studied genotypes of O. vulgare subsp. vulgare are characterized by a high genetic variability, a number of 14 specifi c, 40 polymorphic and only 13 common bands have been revealed. The high degree of genetic polymorphism was established in the analysis with primer OPA19, in the presence of which 4 specifi c, 9 polymorphic and no common bands were detected, followed by OPG05, which generated 14 bands, including 3 - common, 6 - specifi c and 5 - polymorphic. According to the electrophoretic profi les in the case of genotypes O. vulgare subsp. vulgare 1 and O. vulgare subsp. vulgare 5 a number of 13 common and 40 polymorphic bands were revealed. One specifi c band for genotypes 2 and 4 and two specifi c bands for genotype O. vulgare subsp. vulgare 3 have been observed. The high degree of genetic diversity was observed for genotypes 6 and 7, which are distinguished by the presence of 4 and, respectively, 6 specifi c bands. Conclusions This study showed that with the help of the RAPD technique one can easily discriminate closely related individual members and even different populations of medicinal plants. The technique provides suffi cient evidence in the form of numbers of polymorphic markers for identifi cation of varieties. Bibliography 1. Arif IA, Bakir HA, Khan HA, AlFarhan AH, Al Homaidan AA, Bahkali AH, Al Sadoon M, Shobrak M. Application of RAPD for molecular characterization of plant species of medicinal value from an arid environment. Genetics and Molecular Research 9 (4): 2191-9198, 2010. 2. Weder JKP.  Infl uence of experimental conditions on the reproducibility of RAPDPCR identifi cation of legumes and cereals. Lebensm. Wiss. Technol. 35: 233-238, 2002. These studies are the part of Modova - Romania project “Genetic intraspecifi c polymorphism analysis for the elaboration of molecular markers of some medicinal and aromatic plants chemotypes”.