Leaf Morphometric Studies in Some Ipomoea Species of Convolvulaceae Family

Abstract

Eight species of Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae) were morphometrically studied upon their leaf characters, with the help of taxonomical analysis to solve the relationship between these species. On the basis of taxonomical component analysis, among the studied species, it has been disclosed that the numerical characters such as leaf length, petiole length, leaf breadth and lamina length are positively correlated to resolved taxonomical relation of different species of the same genus. Contribute important role in bringing together the species within a genus using principal component analysis results of five quantitative characters based on similarity matrix reveals significantly the correlation between leaf length to leaf breadth, leaf base nerve number, and the ratio of leaf lamina length to petiole length significantly separates the species from each other. Morphometric characters provided justification for the existing classification of the Ipomoea genus. It also indicates the component matrix after extraction of the characters that contributed strongly in similarity between the selected Ipomoea species. Three characters which include Leaf length, leaf breadth, and the ratio of leaf length to leaf breadth contributed significantly to the delimitation of the species of Ipomoea studied. Morphometric analysis of eight species of Ipomoea quamoclit L.; Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.; Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet; Ipomoea hederacea Jacq.; Ipomoea obscura (L.) Ker Gawl.; Ipomoea cordatotriloba Dennst.; Ipomoea lacunosa L. and Ipomoea hederifolia L. Using five different quantitative characters provided justification for the existing classification of the Ipomoea genus. This characters which, contributed significantly to the delimitation of the species of Ipomoea studied. We recommend an application of this method in an elaborate taxonomic study of the genus Ipomoea in the future study.