Phytoliths in Chinese foxtail millet (Setaria italica)

Phytoliths in Inflorescence Bracts: Preliminary Results of an Investigation on Common Panicoideae Plants in China

“…Of all the subtypes, the INTERDIGITATING phytolith with n-type undulation was of low taxonomic value; the n-type undulation being the basic type of all undulation patterns (Ge et al, 2018) and was found in both in the inflorescence and leaves of many taxa (Wang and Lu, 1993). Based on the dataset of the present study, the INTERDIGITATING was mostly observed in Panicoideae species (Lu et al, 2009b;Radomski and Neumann, 2011;Zhang et al, 2011;Madella et al, 2013;Kealhofer et al, 2015;Weisskopf and Lee, 2016;Ge et al, 2018).…”

“…This type was named after Parry and Hodson's first observation of the morphotype in S. italica, in which they described what they observed on inflorescence bracts as "interdigitating epidermal cells" (Parry and Hodson, 1982); however, these could be the silica layer covering the surface of the lemma and palea. Other names that have been used by other studies to describe this type of phytolith include "silica skeleton" (Rosen, 1992;Madella et al, 2013; Madella et al, 2014;Weisskopf and Lee, 2016), "dendriform" (Lu et al, 2005), "silicified epidermal long cells" (Lu et al, 2009a;Lu et al, 2009b;Zhang et al, 2011;Kealhofer et al, 2015), and "epidermal silica layer" (Ge et al, 2018). As the anatomical origin of this type of phytolith has been discussed by Ge (Ge et al, 2018), and associated with a study on rice husk (Yoshida et al, 1962), we propose INTERDIGITATING as the formal name for this phytolith type to show its different anatomical origin and morphology.…”

“…Thereafter, scanning electron microscopy was introduced to study inflorescence phytoliths (Terrell and Wergin, 1981;Sangster et al, 1983;Rosen and Weiner, 1994). With the introduction of phytolith analysis among archaeologists, Poaceae inflorescence phytoliths were valued due to their relationship with human food gathering activities, and the inflorescence phytoliths of both major (Hodson and Sangster, 1988;Piperno and Pearsall, 1993;Tubb et al, 1993;Pearsall et al, 1995;Zhao et al, 1998;Ball et al, 1999;Rosen, 1999;Ball et al, 2001;Pearsall et al, 2003;Rosen, 2004;Hodson et al, 2008;Madella et al, 2014;Ball et al, 2017) and minor (Lu et al, 2009b;Radomski and Neumann, 2011;Zhang et al, 2011;Madella et al, 2013;Kealhofer et al, 2015;Novello and Barboni, 2015;Weisskopf and Lee, 2016;Ge et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2018;Duncan et al, 2019) crops were extensively studied to investigate crop domestication. Nevertheless, many other wild relatives and minor crops have not been studied, which not only results in identification uncertainty, but also has stalled further application of phytolith analysis in the investigation of early plant resource exploitation.…”

Taxonomic assessment of opal phytoliths from grasses of deltaic West Bengal, India

“…Phytolith formation in qualitative and quantitative terms is primarily genetically controlled (Dorweiler and Doebley 1997, Piperno et al 2002, Hodson et al 2005, Mitani and Ma 2005, Piperno 2006, Ma et al 2006, 2007a, b, Yamaji et al 2008, Chiba et al 2009, Peleg 2010, Markovich et al 2015, Exley 2015, Kumar et al 2016, McLarnon et al 2017 though environmental factors may sometimes be influential (Jie et al 2010, Liu et al 2013, Dey et al 2015. Due to the strong relationship between plant taxa and phytolith morphometry, these biogenic silicomorphs have been used as a taxonomic proxy (Metcalfe 1960, Twiss 1992, Mulholland and Rapp 1992, Krishnan et al 2000, Raole and Desai 2009, Ball et al 2009, Ahmad et al 2011, Shakoor et al 2014, Jattisha and Sabu 2012, Kealhofer et al 2015, Gu et al 2016, Neumann et al 2017.…”

“…Phytolith characters are considered as genetically governed important trait which may be only slightly influenced by environmental factors (Hodson et al 2005, Mitani and Ma 2005, Piperno 2006). Hence, their considerable diversity, distinctiveness and frequency attributes may provide crucial inputs in grass taxonomy and have been utilized for discriminating grass taxa at various taxonomic levels (Metcalfe 1960, Twiss 1992, Mulholland and Rapp 1992, Krishnan et al 2000, Raole and Desai 2009, Ball et al 2009, Ahmad et al 2011, Jattisha and Sabu 2012, Shakoor et al 2014, Kealhofer et al 2015, Gu et al 2016, Neumann et al 2017.…”