ANATOMICAL STUDIES ON WILD SOLANUM TAXA IN EGYPT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Plant Taxonomy Unit, Desert Research Center-Matariya, Cairo, Egypt

2 Botany Department, Faculty of Science (Girls), Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

The comparative study on anatomical structure of stems and leaves in 12 wild Solanum taxa re-vealed that the outline of cross sections of stem and petiole, presence or absence of hypodermis, structure of cortex, pericycle and types of steles vary considerably in different studied taxa. It was also evident that other anatomical features of leaf including mesophyll types, arrangement and num-ber of the bundles at the mid-rib region, presence or absence of bundle sheath and idioblast cells as well as the vascular system of petiole are important diagnostic characters in the proposed key for iden-tification. A key including variations in anatomical characters of stems and leaves of the investigated taxa is provided

Keywords