Safflower ( Carthamus tinctorius ) grows in different climatic conditions and could be further improved using wild relatives as exotic gene source. In this study, 73 interspecific F4 lines derived from crosses between the cultivated C. tinctorius and two wild species ( C. oxyacanthus and C. palaestinus ) were evaluated under normal and drought stress conditions. Descriptive statistics showed that except for proline content, the other physiological characteristics had higher mean values under normal condition. Leaf area and proline content had higher heritability when compared to the other characteristics under drought and non-drought conditions respectively. In contrast, photosynthetic pigments and carotenoid content had low heritability in drought and non-drought condition, respectively. Results of combined analysis showed a significant effect of stress condition on phonological characteristics, yield and yield components. However, separate analysis of variance results did not show any significant effects on most of the physiological characteristics among the lines. Interspecific lines from crossing of the two wild species had the highest photosynthetic pigments and those from crossing the cultivated species with the wild ones had the most yield and proline content. Among the lines, those that were from wild crosses had the highest values for physiological characteristics. Descriptive statistics results also showed that mean values for morphological characteristics under non-drought stress condition were higher than those measured for drought stress condition. Phenological characteristics had higher coefficient of phenotypic variation and heritability than yield and yield components but had lower coefficient of genetic variation. Analysis of variance results also showed a high variation both within and between the lines for the studied traits. Among the lines, PI 11 ( C. palestinus ? C. tinctorius ) and PI 3 were found to be the earliest and the latest flowering genotypes respectively. Also PI 11 and Pa( C. palestinus ) were the highest yielding lines. The results of regression analysis showed that capitulum numbers in each plant and seed number per capitulum justified most of the variation for yield. Also results of path analysis showed that capitulum numbers in each plant and seed number per capitulum had the most direct effect on yield, making them suitable for indirect selection for yield improvement. Results of principal component analysis showed that under water stress condition, five components and for non-stress condition, six components justified more than 80 percent of variation. Cluster analysis results showed that under drought stress condition, genotypes had a much higher variation and a distorted trend in their grouping. However, for non-drought stress condition, a trend was observed and genotypes were clustered mostly according to their parental lineage. TOL, MP, GMP, STI and K i _STI indices showed positive and significant correlation with yield in non-drought stress condition. PI 1 , Pa and PO 2 ( C. palestinus ? C. oxyacanthus ) were determined as the most tolerance genotypes and OP 16 ( C. oxyacanthus ? C. palestinus ), IP 19 ( C. tinctorius ? C. palestinus ) and OP 10 were determined as the most sensitive genotypes to drought stress. Keywords: Safflower, Drought stress, Phenologicaland Physiological characteristics