JOURNAL OF TAXONOMY AND BIOSISTEMATICS
Year:2013 | Volume:4 | Issue:13|Papers Count:7

In the present study, a comparative anatomical study of stem, midrib of basal leave and fruit is provided. In this paper, 45 anatomical characters of stem, midrib and fruit of some species such as Glaucium grandiflorum, G. fimbrilligerum, G. corniculatum, G. contortuplicatum, G. haussknechtii, G. elegans and other species such as Roemeria hybrida, R. refracta, H. pendulum and C. majus are presented. In this study, we report the presence of glandular hair in G. oxylobum and G. pulchrum for the first time. Among the examined traits, some traits such as shape of placenta, the presence of hairs, carpellary angle, the shape of carpellary angle, the number of external and internal layers of parenchyma of outer wall of ovary, the number of vascular bundles of placenta in the fruit and the presence of the central cavity, existence of hairy glands, the number of vascular bundles of phloem, lack of strengthening tissue surrounding the vascular bundles in the midrib of some species are different and the differences are significant enough to be useful in the delimitation of some species of Glaucium. Anatomical features of midrib in these genera indicate, in spite of some differences, the fundamental structure is similar, so cross section of blade by itself cannot be a good scale for identification of the species of the genus Glaucium and other genera. Anatomical features of stem are neither a suitable scale for separating species of Glaucium, nor for other genera. Anatomical features of fruit are useful in identification and determination species of genus Glaucium, but also, for four other genera, especially cross section of the fruit of H. pendulum showed significant differences in comparison with other genera.Some anatomical features of fruit in Glucium can be used in taxonomically grouping of the genus. The most important traits are the apparent shape of ovarian placenta.

This study deals with the flora of five important wetlands namely Marzoonabad, Langoor, Bosra, Ramenet and Aghoozbon and their surroundings in Babol, Mazandaran province. In order to carry out a floristic survey in these wetlands, all vascular plants were collected during two growing seasons (2010-2011). We encountered 196 species belonging to 138 genera and 58 families. The largest families in the studied area were Poaceae with 24 species, Cyperaceae with 19 species, Asteraceae with 16 species, Fabaceae with 13 species and Polygonaceae with 9 species, respectively. Genera represented by the greatest number of species were Cyperus (8), Polygonum (7) and Potamogeton (4). Classification based on life form indicated that the therophytes (37%) comprised the largest proportion of the plants in the studied area. From chorological point of view, the largest proportion of the flora belonged to the pluriregional elements (54.5%). Various habitats of the wetland are discussed. Among the five wetlands of Babol, Marzoonabad had the highest number of species (111) and Langoor with 63 species placed on second. Moreover, a comparison between the data collected here and other northern Iranian wetlands has been provided which indicated some similarities and dissimilarities between different studied wetlands.According to SÆrensen’s (1948) similarity index, there are less similarities between the species of the five wetlands of Babol because they have different surface area and there is no relation between them.

Lowland Hyrcanian (Caspian) areas possess a number of important remnant patches of deciduous Euro-Siberian forests distributed sparsely in the three Iranian provinces, Guilan, Mazandaran and Golestan. Noor and Sisangan are two large patches of such lowland forests classifield as “natural forest parks” in the context of “Iranian natural resources”.in  spite of a few local studies, broad knowledge upon the flora and vegetation of these areas are lacking. A total of 225 species belonging to 175 genera and 77 plant families were collected from the studied areas. The largest families in terms of species richness, were Poaceae (28 spp.), Asteraceae (18 spp.) and Rosaceae (9 spp.), respectively. The genera with the largest number of species wereCarex (6 spp.), Veronica (5 spp.) and Euphorbia, Polygonum, Solanum (each with 4 spp.), respectively.In the assessment of life form spectrum, the dominant life forms were therophytes (30.2%), followed by the geophytes (27.1%), hemicryptophytes (20.9%) and phanerophytes (18.2%). The flora was mostly composed of pluriregional elements with 60 taxa (27.3%), followed by Euro-Siberian/Irano-Turanian/Mediterranean elements with 43 taxa (19.5%). Life form spectra and chorotype percentages were discussed for each study area separately. According to sÆren’s (1948) similarity index, there was a remarkable similarity between two forest areas. Noor and Sisangan forests were highly threatened ecosystems in case of species loss and changing natural communities due to occurrence of anthropogenic and over-grazing effects.

This study dealt with banding patterns of seed storage proteins using sodium dodecylsulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) with extract of bulked seeds of Phalaris L. species of Iran. The results showed that two varieties of P. paradoxa L. as var.praemorsa and var. paradoxa L. were closely related. A close relationship and high protein similarity (J=0.583) were found between P. arundinacea L. and P. brachystachys Link. Electrophoretic results were compared with previous anatomical and morphological studies.

In this research, meiotic chromosome number and the behavior of four populations of Astragalus anserinifoliusBoiss. of Astragalus sect. Malacothrix were studied. All wild populations were diploid and showed 2n=2x=16 chromosome number, consistent with the proposed base number of x=8 from IPCN. Although all taxa displayed regular bivalent pairing and chromosome segregation at meiosis, some meiotic abnormalities included varied degrees of fragmented and sticky chromosomes in metaphase I, polynucleate and a variable number of laggards, forwarded chromosomes and bridges in anaphase I/telophase I, asynchronous nucleus and precocious chromosome migration in metaphase II and laggards, bridges and cytomixis in anaphase II/telophase II were observed.

Phenetic relationships among thirty five accessions from natural populations of two varieties of Glycyrrhiza glabra in central Zagros region of Iran were studied. Twenty one quantitative morphological characters were measured for twenty seven accessions. PCO, clustering, K-means and MDS analyses were performed on morphological dataset. Polar flavonoid constituents of twenty four accessions were extracted, purified using TLC and characterized at the skeleton class level. Glycyrrhizin contents of rhizomes in twenty four accessions were quantified using image processing methods. Results of multivariate analysis of both morphological and flavonoid spot profile data showed that accessions could be partitioned into two main groups based on geographical locality of the populations. The most variable morphological trait based on CV values, was seed area and the least variable one was Legume width in the widest portion. Accessions of both varieties produced various flavonoids of class flavones and flavonols. Seven flavonoid constituents from the two varieties were separated based on different Rf values. The results revealed that there were moderate (not prominent) levels of variation between the studied accessions. Separation of the varieties based on the single qualitative character in the available literature, was confirmed. Rhizomes of both varieties showed similar amounts of glycyrrhizin and almost similar types of flavonoids in their TLC profiles, suggesting that both were equivalent as herbal drugs in folk medicine.

Poaceae is the fourth largest family of the flowering plants. It includes about 700-800 genera and 11000-13000 species distributed worldwide. The family has unmatched ecological and economic importance. With its origin in the early cretaceous and major diversification in the mid Cenozoic, the family at present covers nearly a fifth of land surface and occurs in nearly all the habitats of the world. With a sub tropical ecology and an agrarian economy of Punjab, grasses comprise the most significant group in the region. Despite an overwhelming significance, taxonomic studies in grasses have not received sufficient attention in the region.It is only in the work of Sharma and Khosla (1989) that grass species have been classified into subfamilies and tribes. However, after the establishment of the Grass Phylogeny Working Group (GPWG) the world has witnessed a renaissance in grass systematics. But, India remains an ‘indercollected’ country as far as grass diversity is concerned. Ourwork on the exploration and systematics of the grass flora of the region is an effort to consolidate and update the information on the diversity of grasses of the studied area. The present studies have brought the cumulative species number to 192 including seven new reports. The species representation of subfamilies is: Aristidoideae (5) Arundinoideae (5) Bambusoideae (4), Centothecoideae (1), Chloridoideae (55) Erhartoideae (3), Panicoideae (98) and Pooideae (21).