SUMMARY. One of the most well-known examples of successful plant invasion on the European continent is the rapid spread of Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera Royle). Introduced to Europe from the Himalayas in the first half of the 19th century as an ornamental and melliferous species, it first naturalized in Great Britain, from where it dispersed throughout Europe. Despite the active invasion of I. glandulifera in Eastern Europe, the genetic diversity of Himalayan balsam populations in this region has not yet been studied. In the present work, we identified variants of two chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) regions, trnS-G and rpl32-trnL (UAG), in Ukrainian I. glandulifera accessions and compared them with variants from continental Europe and Great Britain, as well as with those from India and Pakistan. It was shown that two haplotypes, T1-R1 and T2-R2, which differ in the two regions of cpDNA analyzed, are widespread in continental Europe. The divergence of the two haplotypes occurred within the native range. The diversity of I. glandulifera cpDNA variants appeared to be significantly higher in the native than in the invasive range. The widespread occurrence of two chloroplast haplotypes in Europe supports the hypothesis of multiple introductions of I. glandulifera. The uneven distribution of haplotypes T1-R1 and T2-R2 within Ukraine may be a consequence of the founder effect.
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