Rostaniha
Year:2006 | Volume:7 | Issue:1|Papers Count:10

The Caspian (Hyrcanian) lowland forest zone in northern Iran is characterized by small remnant alder forest communities, dominated or subdominated with an Euxino-Hyrcanian element, Alnus glutinosa ssp. barbata. The first floristic inventory of these alder forests in northern Iran is presented. The floristic catalogue is based on the data of 133 phytosociological releves in eight different alder forest sites and on a supplementary floristic inventory of the same sites. Totally, 209 taxa were determined out of which 25 taxa are endemic of Hyrcanian district. Classification based on life form, indicates that the geophytes and phanerophytes make up the largest proportion of the plants in the studied Flora. From the chorological point of view, the largest proportion of the flora belongs to the Euro-Siberian and pluriregional elements. In addition to the total assessment, variation of life forms and phytochoria between different study sites are discussed herewith.There are some similarities and differences in the floristic composition between the study sites based on using similarity indices formula.

Secale cereale (rye) with its vitally importance can have a marked place in the world cereal production, particularly in North Europe. This study concerns morphology, taxonomy and cytotaxonomy of this species in Iran. Based on the evaluation of 12 qualitative and quantitative morphological characters and using phenetic analysis, it was revealed that, S. cereale occurs in Iran with two subspecies, namely, cereale and ancestrale. Our results showed that the rachis fragility could be considered as a distinctive character between the above taxa. The cytotaxonomic observations of 10 populations showed that all the Iranian S. cereale gene pool belongs to the diploid (2n=14) level. Only one population showed two B-chromosomes.

Endophytic fungi have mutualistic relationship with the plant family Poaceae. These fungi confer characteristics such as yield increase and biotic and abiotic stress resistance to host plants. Endophytes are classified in the family Clavicipitaceae. The endophytes spend all their life cycle in the aerial parts of plant hosts and live intercellularly. In the present investigation, endophytic fungi were isolated from seed and leaf sheath of Festuca arundinaceous, F. ovina, F. pratensis, Bromus tomentellus, Melica persica and Lolium prenne. Genomic DNA was extracted and three sets of primers: ITS1/ITS4, IS1/IS3 and 111/112 were used to detect and identify endophytes. The results of PCR with three paires of primers indicated that most of isolates used in research were endophytic fungi belonging to Neotyphodium and isolates of F. arundinacea were N. coenophialum. For amplification of ITS1/ITS2 and 5.8 S gene, primers ITS1/ITS4 were used.PCR products were digested by Sau3AI and CfoI. The results of PCR-RFLP showed that, restriction analysis is concordant with the morphological studies and PCR specific primers.

Hormoz Island with 41 km3 area located in south of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan Province in 27° 2' to 27° 6' Nand 56° 25' to 56° 31' E geographical position. In this study, 191 species are introduced. These species belong to 44 families (One family of Angiosperms, 40 families of Dicotyledones and 3 families of Monocotyledones) and 142 genera. Of the species recognized, nine species (4.7%) are endemic to Iran. Papilionaceae with 26 species, Gramineae with 23 species and Compositae with 20 species are main families of this region. Life forms by using Raunkier method showed that, Therophytes with 47.6% (91 species) of species are the most frequent life forms. Chamaephytes with 22.5%, Hemichryptophytes with 17.3% and Phanerophytes with 9% are other life forms.High percentage of Therophytes indicates that, the area has dry and deserty climate. Geophytes with 6 species and Helophytes with one species are less important. Investigation on geographical distribution of plants species showed 44.5% (85 species) of species belong to Saharo-Sindian, 40.8% of species are common between Saharo-Sindian with others zones, 2.6% (5 species) to Irano-Touranian and 3.7% percent (7 species) to Cosmic zones.

Three Hypomyces and one Cladobotryum species are studied and reported as new records and also new anamorph/teleomorph connections of fungicolous fungi for Iran. Anamorphs of two species H. aurantius and H. rosellus (Cladobotryum varium and C. dendroides, respectively) have already been reported from Iran. The anamorph/teleomorph association of H. polyporinus/C. clavisporum was also found and was reported for the first time here. In order to clarify the namorph/teleomorph associations in all cases a single-ascospore culture was obtained on PDA and MEA and the resulting anamorph was identified.

As a complement to morphological research on the genus Isatis (Brassicaceae), an anatomical study was conducted on the ffuit, leaf and stem of 18 species and four subspecies of this genus, as well as two species belonging to the genus Pachypterygium.Inclusion of the members of the later genus in the study was to clarity the evidences that supported their affinity to the genus Isatis. As a result, it was found that, fruit and leaf anatomy yields useful information for the genera under study, as documented by photographs taken from transverse section of these organs and the stem. It also supported the idea of transferring Pachypterygium brevipes and P. multicaule to the section Eremoglaston of Isatis, as the ffuit anatomy of these species showed that the only stated distinctive characteristic of them from Isatis, i.e. thickened fruit margins, did not hold good. In addition, there were very close similarities observed between the above species and the members of the section Eremoglaston in terms of membranous loculus and hair type, which is a very important distinctive characteristic particularly at sectional level. The study also involved preparing drawings of the fruits of all available species.

The effects of non-saline soils with low, medium and high salinity, (EC = I, 7, 10 and 18 decisiemens per meter, respectively) on ion content and proline, were studied in different organs of two colza (Brassica napus L.) cultivars, namely, PF 7045.91 and Hyola 401, in pot culture conditions and also the efficiency of comparing these changes were used as a tool for this study.Plants were grown in plastic pots filled with soils with different electrical currencies mentioned above, collected from different areas of the Golestan Province, Iran. After five months, randomly selected plants were used for determining praline content of root and shoot and also content of root, stem, rosette and inflorescence leaves.Results showed that, salinity increased the content of sodium, chlorine, and proline in each two cultivars. The potassium content in each two cultivar decreased under salinity. The calcium content decreased in root and increased in shoot.The magnesium content of root decreased primarily and then increased.There are no significant difficult in low and medium salinity among two cultivars but in high salinity, PF is the more tolerant cultivar.

This study was carried out to determine species composition of sooty mold fungi on Citrus species in Gilan Province, which is located in the North of Iran. This region isolated by Alborz mountain range from other parts of the country with maximum rainfall about 2000 mm/year. A total of seven species belonging to various genera of mitosporic fungi viz., Conidiocarpous penzigii, C. cf. caucasicus, Chaetasbo/isia microglobulosa, Leptoxyphium sp., Polychaeton artocarpi, Polychaeton sp. and Tripospermum roupalae were identified. Moreover, two ascomyctes species including Aithaloderma ferrugineum and Trichomerium grandisporum are also recorded as causal agent of sooty mold on Citrus plant in this region. Polychaeton artocarpi is proposed as a new combination. According to literatures, all above-mentioned taxa, are new to Iran mycoflora.