Corm tunic morphology of Turkish Crocoideae (Iridaceae) and their systematic significance

Abstract

The corms of the Crocoideae vary in size, shape, number of internodes and length, the tunic structure of which often supplies good taxonomic characters. We here present detailed corm and tunic drawings and crystal types of Crocus L., Romulea Maratti and Gladiolus L. for the first time. Crocus taxa show tunic characteristics that are significantly different from each other. Romulea shows useful taxonomic characters only on the margins of the tunics that is covering the basal ridge. Tunic characters of the studied Gladiolus species are not as stable as in the other genera. The crystal types of the corm tunics of the studies taxa have been identified in Crocus: typical; small and thin square shaped, relatively short and thick, arrow‐shaped styloids. Romulea has regularly lined, hexagonal crystals on tunics. Gladiolus taxa have typical styloids and crystalline granules.

Get the shovel: morphological and evolutionary complexities of belowground organs in geophytes

“…In a corm, stem tissue acts as the main repository for carbohydrates and water. Similar to bulbs, many corms have dried, outer coverings formed from leaf bases of previous years’ growth called tunics; however, these are typically more fibrous than those associated with bulbs (Goldblatt and Manning, 1990; Erol et al, 2008). Corms are commonly replaced on an annual basis, and the new corm is produced either laterally from an axillary bud or apically from the shoot apical meristem (SAM) (Pate and Dixon, 1982; Kamenetsky and Okubo, 2012).…”

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

“…lycius has a corm tunic reticulate-fibrous. Recently, Erol et al (2008) portrayed the structure of the corm tunics of some Crocus speces. The taxonomic importance of corm tunics was implied by Erol et al (2008).…”

“…in North-West Turkey and Satil and Selvi (2007) have determined the anatomy and ecology of some Crocus taxa from the western parts of Turkey, respectively. Moreover Erol et al (2008) have portrayed the structure of corm tunics of some Crocus speces.…”

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

“…To our knowledge, no morphological discontinuities have been formally recognized in Italian populations of this species and no previous study has used appropriate objective methods and sampling strategies to identify morphological variations within and among populations of R. bulbocodium. Previous studies analyzed karyology (Peruzzi et al, 2011) and few characters from corm tunic morphology (Erol and Küç üker, 2003;Erol et al, 2008), in some Euro-Mediterranean species of the genus.…”