ABSTRACT Dacryodes edulis (G.Don) H.J.Lam is an important economic forest tree  which belongs to the family Burseraceae. The pulp of the fruit is a staple meal of the inhabitants of Southern Nigeria. Its fruits exhibits a high degree of morphological variability from tree to tree across ecological zones. D.edulis has thus been classified by several authors based on fruits. The main objective of this work is to determine genetic diversity within D.edulis utilising Inter Simple Sequence Repeat DNA (ISSR) markers with a view to delimit varietals. Molecular studies were carried out with a view to relating the observed morphological variability to its genetics. This study assessed the genetic diversity of thirty-two D. edulis accessions in Nigeria based on ISSR marker technique. Genomic DNA isolated from individual D. edulis samples were primed with five ISSR primers (UBC808, UBC811, UBC824, UBC825, and UBC880)  amplified through PCR and the products resolved using Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The polymorphism information content (PIC), gene diversity and major allele frequency estimates were computed by using PowerMarker software while GenAlEx software was employed to estimate gene flow levels, to reveal partitioning of variation across the populations and display the genetic relationships among the populations. All the 5 primer pairs used in this study were polymorphic. Gene diversity values were calculated for all analyzed loci which ranged from 0.60 to 0.88 for the loci UBC824 and UBC880, respectively, with a mean of 0.79. A total of 48 alleles were identified with an average allele number of 9.6 per locus. A mean value of 0.78 for Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) demonstrated the existence of variation among the accessions. The ISSR technique proved to be a useful tool for identifying genetic linkages and diversity among D. edulis accessions studied. The identification of genetic diversity among the populations of D. edulis was made possible by the use of microsatellite markers.  While this study revealed evidence of genetic variability, this was however not sufficient to detect varietal separation of the species. There were also broad similarities in accessions studied. The occurrence of clusters at lower distance scales indicated lower divergence. These results are significant in the classification and conservation of D.edulis species.