A morphological and anatomical investigation about two rare and endemic Crocus taxa (Iridaceae) from Southern Anatolia

Abstract

The morphological and anatomical characteristics of Crocus reticulatus subsp. hittiticus and Crocus cancellatus subsp. lycius, which are under the danger of extinction, have been investigated. The distributions of the two endemic subspecies are limited in Turkey. The plant samples were collected from the South Anatolia Region. The subsp. hittiticus flowers in the early spring whereas subsp. lycius flowers in the autumn. Their corm tunics are coarsely reticulate-fibrous. The subsp. hittiticus has blackish anthers and purple striped outer segments. The subsp. lycius has flowers with very pale lilac coloured and veined. Also, the style of this subsp. is equal to their anthers. These morphological properties are characteristics for two the subspecies investigated. The transverse-sections of the root, stem and leaf parts of these subspecies have been examined and revealed. Their morphologic and anatomic structures are illustrated. The anatomic properties of the two subspecies have been determined to be similar to the anatomic properties of other species of the genus Crocus. Moreover, the crystal type on the organs of the subsp. lycius was investigated.

Morphological And Anatomical Properties Of Endemic Iris nezahatiae Distributed In The North-East Anatolia Region (Turkey)

“…The investigated species has xeoromorphic characters such as; thick cuticular layer on the epiderma of leaf and stem, bulliform cells on the upper epiderma of leaf, the edges of the leaves curved towards inside, stomata below than the epiderma cells, epiderma trichomes, lacking of stoma in the upper epiderma, palisade parenchyma more than spongy parenchyma, dense sclerenchyma cells in the vascular bundles and on the edge of the leaf, the the extending sclerenchyma as girders towards epiderma and the presence of bundle sheath. These chacacters were determined in Iridaceae and the other families [15,16,18,19,20,21]. Consequently, morphologic and anatomic properties of I. nezahatiae which is under threat of exctinction were determined in detail.…”

Morphological and leaf anatomical variability of Crocus cf. heuffelianus Herb. (Iridaceae) populations from the different habitats of the Balkan Peninsula

“…(Kandemir, 2009), C. gargaricus Herbert, C. nubigena Herbert, C. mouradii Withall and Mathew, C. candidus E. D. Clarke, C. pallasii Goldb., and C. pulchellus Herbert (Satıl and Selvi, 2007). As in the case of many other species (Kandemir, 2010;Raca et al, 2017), two out of four large vascular bundles are located in the corners of the keel and the other two are positioned at the end of the arms. Exceptions can be found in some sections from Mladenovac, Zlatibor Mt., Trebević Mt., and Kopaonik Mt.…”

“…heuffelianus with different chromosome numbers may represent independent species. The leaf anatomical characters, used together with a wide range of other diagnostic characters, are indispensable in taxonomy (Rudall and Mathew, 1990;Akan, 2007;Erol and Küçüker, 2007;Satıl and Selvi, 2007;Kandemir, 2009Kandemir, , 2010Kandemir, , 2011Kandemir, , 2012Coşkun, 2010;Özdemir, 2010;Yetişen, 2013;Candan, 2015aCandan, , 2015bRaca et al, 2017). These authors generally pointed out the relevance of leaf blade and surface, mesophyll, and vascular bundle features as good differential markers.…”

Ecological patterns of morphological variation in Italian populations of Romulea bulbocodium (Iridaceae)

“…An advantage of morphometry is objectivity in data handling, especially when many variables are involved (Manly, 1994). In addition, studies conducted on Crocus and Iris (Kandemir, 2010;Sapir et al, 2002) showed that morphometric analyzes can be useful in clarifying systematic questions in Iridaceae. Multivariate methods have been widely used as taxonomical tools across taxonomic groups to answer different questions, including ecological influence of geography and soil parameters on morphological variability within taxa (Debussche and Thompson, 2003;Ellison et al, 2004;Pinheiro and De Barros, 2007).…”