Morphological and anatomical features of seeds of Turkish Romulea taxa (Iridaceae) and their taxonomic significance

Abstract

This paper reports on the assessment of morphological (macro and micro) and anatomical characters of seeds of Romulea taxa distributed in Turkey with the use of one-way analysis of variance, cluster analysis and principal component analysis. Morphological characteristics such as size, shape, color and surface of seeds were examined with the use of light and scanning electron microscopes. Thicknesses of testa and phytomelan layer, sizes of embryo in seeds were studied anatomically. The outcomes revealed that taxa were similar in some aspects such as color and shape of seeds. However, seed size, thickness of testa and phytomelan layer, shape of the epidermal cells in testa and sizes of embryo were different among taxa, and have taxonomic value in the distinction of these taxa from each other. In addition, the seed surfaces were more or less different for the examined taxa on an interspecific level. Consequently, seed morphology and anatomy with a few exceptions demonstrated diversity and they had taxonomic importance in terms of distinguishing among species.