Taxonomic relationships in Lagenaria Seringe (Cucurbitaceae) based on foliar epidermal morphology
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Date
2013
Authors
Kadiri, A. B.
Utubor, D.
Ogundipe, O.T.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Botanical Garden PJ Safarik University Slovakia
Abstract
The genus possesses a suite of leaf epidermal
characteristics which reflect the affinities among the species. The
most generic constant features are anomocytic stomatal type and
undulate anticlinal wall pattern on the abaxial surface. Whereas the
species distinguishing features include paracytic stomata which
were recorded only in L. breviflora, hypostomatic leaf distinguishes
L. abyssinica and L. rufa from other species that are
amphistomatic, uniform epidermal cell shape on both surfaces of
the leaf differentiates L. guineensis and L. siceraria from other
species that have dissimilar patterns on the surfaces. Other
features are possession of globular head trichome in L. siceraria,
impefect conical trichome in L. abyssinica and bicellular glandular
conical trichome in L. sphaerica. Quantitatively, epidermal cells
number generally varies from 28/mm² in L. vulgaris to 112/mm² in L.
breviflora on the adaxial and abaxial surfaces respectively while
stomatal number varies from 2-20/mm² and stomatal index is
between 2.2 – 34.9 % on the adaxial surface and 8.2 – 20.8 % on
the abaxial surface. Based on these features, two main groups and
subgroups are proposed based on neighbour joining cluster derived
from Euclidean similarity measure. Also, an indented dichotomous
key is presented for species delimitation.
Description
Keywords
leaf epidermis , light microscopy , taxonomy , Lagenaria , UPGMA dendrogram
Citation
Kadiri, A. B., Utubor, D. and Ogundipe, O. T. (2013). Taxonomic relationships in Lagenaria Seringe (Cucurbitaceae) based on foliar epidermal morphology. Thaiszia Journal of Botany Košice 23: 47-59