Comparative Morphological Investigation on Seeds of Some Crocus L. Taxa from Turkey

Feyza Candan^*

Biology Dept., Botany Section, Faculty of Arts & Science, Manisa Celal Bayar University, Manisa, Turkey

Abstract

This investigation is made to determine seed morphological characteristics of 8 Crocus L. taxa as C. abantensis Baytop & Mathew, C. gargaricus Herb. subsp. gargaricus, C. danfordiae Maw, C. biflorus Mill. subsp. biflorus, C. biflorus subsp. nubigena (Herbert) Mathew, C. antalyensis B. Mathew, C. olivieri J. Gay subsp. olivieri, C. candidus Clarke. Light microscope was used to determine mature seeds of all taxa and their colorful photographs were given firstly. However, length and width of seeds as regards 8 taxa were determined. As a result, seed shapes and all their selective morphological features were discussed in the point of their taxonomical importance as regards their systematics.

Keywords

C. abantensis, C. gargaricus subsp. gargaricus, C. danfordiae, C. biflorus subsp. biflorus, C. biflorus subsp. nubigena, C. antalyensis, C. olivieri subsp. olivieri, C. candidus, Seed Morphology

Received: June 11, 2015
Accepted: July 17, 2015
Published online: July 29, 2015

@ 2015 The Authors. Published by American Institute of Science. This Open Access article is under the CC BY-NC license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

1. Introduction

Among the Angiosperm members, Iridaceae family is an invincible family with its attractive flowers. The taxa that belongs Iridaceae family are herbs with rhizomes, corms and bulbs (Mathew, 1984). Turkey especially Anatolia is the gene centre for the genus. Crocus is represented by 133 taxa, of which 109 are endemic to Turkey (Candan & Özhatay 2013; Harpke et al. 2013; Kerndorrf et al. 2013a, 2013b, 2013c; Rukšāns 2010, 2013; Yüzbaşıoğlu et al. 2015).

Iridaceae family is resembled with 6 genus in Turkey. These are Iris L., Hermodactylus Miller, Gynandriris Parl., Crocus L., Romulea Maratti and Gladiolus L. (Mathew, 1984). Crocus species are perennial plants, adopted to overcome a dry dormant period in the form of an under ground corm, in many ways resembling Colchicum L. (Mathew 1982; Bowles 1952).

After the book ‘The Crocus’ written (Mathew 1982), different Crocus species have received attention on some ecological, anatomical, cytological, palynological and molecular studies (Kerndorff and Pasche 2004, 2006, 2011; Erol 2011; Işık and Oybak Dönmez 2006; Candan 2007; Candan et al. 2009a, 2009b; Şık et al., 2008; Şık and Candan 2009; Candan 2013, Candan and Özhatay 2013, Candan 2015a, 2015b). There are also some investigations made about some Crocus taxa distributed all over the world (Collins 1937, Karasawa 1942, Shorine 1975, Rudall 1990, 1992, Mathew 1984, 1998, 2000, 2002, Rudall and Mathew 1990). In these studies, especially according to Rudall and Mathew (1990), characteristic features and general importance of leaf blade cross sections of Crocus samples were determined. As it is seen, there aren’t any detailed study on the comparison of seed morphology related 8 Crocus L. taxa (C. abantensis Baytop & Mathew, C. gargaricus Herb. subsp. gargaricus, C. danfordiae Maw, C. biflorus Mill. subsp. biflorus, C. biflorus subsp. nubigena (Herbert) Mathew, C. antalyensis B. Mathew, C. olivieri J. Gay subsp. olivieri, C. candidus Clarke). It is aimed to investigate the distinguishable and significant peculiarities of seeds in regard to populations of the 8 Crocus taxa with this study.

2. Material and Method

Author made extensive field studies between 2006-2010 in Anatolia about Crocus. The specimens themselves have been deposited in the Herbarium of the Biology Department, Faculty of Arts&Science Faculty, Manisa Celal Bayar University. Other samples examined are deposited at the following herbaria AEF (Ankara University, Pharmacy Faculty Herbarium), ANK (Ankara University, Science Faculty Herbarium), GAZI (Gazi University, Science Faculty Herbarium), HUB (Hacettepe University, Science Faculty Herbarium), EGE (Ege University, Science Faculty Herbarium). Seeds of 8 taxa studied with this investigation were collected at the summer time and examined with light microscopy. Terminology of seeds relating these taxa were made according to Stearn (1992) and Bojˇnanský & Fargašová (2007).

The localities of all taxa are given below.

C. abantensis Baytop&Mathew (Fig. 1a)

Bolu-Abant Lake-Mudurnu road, Çepni village, 1048 m.

C. gargaricus Herb. subsp. gargaricus (Fig. 2a)

Balıkesir, Edremit, Kazdağı, on road to the top, 1310 m

C. danfordiae Maw (Fig. 3a)

Kütahya, Aslanapa-Kütahya road, 38 km to Kütahya, 1063 m

C. biflorus Mill. subsp. biflorus (Fig. 4a)

Çanakkale, Çan, 5 km to Kirazlı, 327 m

C. biflorus Mill. subsp. nubigena (Herbert) Mathew (Fig. 5a)

İzmir, Bergama, Akropolis Hill, 226 m

C. antalyensis Mathew (Fig. 6a)

Muğla, Göktepe, Yılanlı Mountain, 1315 m

C. olivieri J.Gay subsp. olivieri (Fig. 7a)

Kütahya, Yenice Village, 1193 m

C. candidus Clarke (Fig. 8a)

Çanakkale, Çan road, 247 m

3. Results

Morphological features of C. abantensis, C. gargaricus subsp. gargaricus, C. danfordiae, C. biflorus subsp. biflorus, C. biflorus subsp. nubigena, C. antalyensis, C. olivieri subsp. olivieri, C. candidus seeds are given below with their colorful photos in a detailed way in the point of their taxonomy (Fig. 1b-8b).

C. abantensis Baytop&Mathew (Fig. 1b)

Seed is swollen and rectangular. Caruncle and raphe are distinct. Surface rugose. Color dark brownish. 3,3-3,6 mm length.

C. gargaricus Herb. subsp. gargaricus (Fig. 2b)

Seed is swollen and globular. Caruncle and raphe are not distinct. Surface not rugose. Color reddish.1,7-1,9 mm length.

C. danfordiae Maw (Fig. 3b)

Seed is swollen and ellipsoidal. Caruncle and raphe are distinct. Surface not rugose. Color reddish. 3,1-3,5 length.

C. biflorus Mill. subsp. biflorus (Fig. 4b)

Seed is swollen and ellipsoidal. Caruncle and raphe are distinct. Surface not rugose. Color reddish. 3,2-3,6 length.

C. biflorus Mill. subsp. nubigena (Herbert) Mathew (Fig. 5b)

Seed is swollen and ellipsoidal. Caruncle and raphe are distinct. Surface not rugose. Color reddish. 3,9-4,4 length.

C. antalyensis Mathew (Fig. 6b)

Seed is swollen and ellipsoidal. Caruncle and raphe are distinct. Surface not rugose. Color reddish. 3,3-3,8 length.

C. olivieri J. Gay subsp. olivieri (Fig. 7b)

Seed is swollen and rectangular. Caruncle and raphe are distinct. Surface rugose. Color dark brownish. 3,3-3,8 mm length.

C. candidus Clarke (Fig. 8b)

Seed is swollen and rectangular-ellipsoidal. Caruncle and raphe are distinct. Surface rugose. Color dark brownish. 3,5-4,0 mm length.

4. Discussion

Mathew wrote a magnificent monograph ‘The Crocus’ (1982). However; the genus Crocus was previously revised by Mathew (1984) for the Flora of Turkey. First descriptive information of capsula fruit and restricted seed morphological features as regards Crocus genus was given in Flora of Turkey. On the other hand, there aren’t any sufficient information about the seeds in spite of their taxonomical importance. Because of that reason, this study is important in the point of the lack of seed knowledge at identification key of the problematic genus Crocus. As is known, there are more studies about taxonomical importance of seed characters for some taxa.

Murley (1951) made a descriptive and complementary useful key for Cruciferae family and the other families seed description. These knowledge were made a significant contribution to solve important problems for classification of Cruciferae.

Few studies have been made of the adaptive significance of seed and fruit coat macromorphology, sculpturing and ornamentation in Scrophulariacea and Asteraceae. The seeds and achenes have no obvious adaptations for animal or bird dispersal, whereas ornamentation might enhance their chances of being dispersed by animals. It was also suggested that such features have selective advantages in dry habitats by reducing water loss (Shetler and Morin 1986; Aktaş Akcın 2009).

Achene fruit external morphology and anatomy in members of different tribes of Asteraceae are found important for delimitation of genera (Garg and Sharma 2007, Pandey and Kumari 2007). On the other hand, achene micromorphological characters have been found useful in systematics of the family Asteraceae (Abid and Qaiser 2002, 2007a, b, 2009; Akcin and Akcin 2010, 2014, Shekhar et al. 2011). As a fundamental contribution, this investigation is the first detailed study with regard to seed morphological features of 8 Crocus taxa as C. abantensis Baytop & Mathew, C. gargaricus Herb. subsp. gargaricus, C. danfordiae Maw, C. biflorus Mill. subsp. biflorus, C. biflorus subsp. nubigena (Herbert) Mathew, C. antalyensis B. Mathew, C. olivieri Gay subsp. olivieri, C. candidus Clarke. The colorful seed photographs of all these taxa are given firstly with this study. Crocus species displayed great variation in terms of seed macromorphology and colors (Fig. 1b-8b).

Crocus species displayed great variation in terms of seed macromorphology and colors, which has great importance in identifying the species taxonomically. According to this investigation, C. gargaricus can be distinguished from the other with its globular shape. C. danfordiae, C. biflorus subsp. biflorus and C. biflorus subsp. nubigena can be selected from the others because of their resembled ellipsoidal shapes with their distinct caruncla-raphe and their reddish color. However, C. antalyensis shape is smilar to C. danfordiae, C. biflorus subsp. biflorus and C. biflorus subsp. nubigena, but its seed color is brownish. Seeds regarding C. abantensis, C. olivieri subsp. olivieri and C. candidus are resembled with their distinct caruncla-raphe, rugose surface and their brownish color, but C. candidus has rectangular–ellipsoidal shape. On the other hand, seed diameters of all taxa will have a taxonomical importance at their descriptions.

Based on previous researches about the other taxa and the results presented here, it can be concluded that the morphological features with the other morphological characters of flowers as regards samples can be useful to distinguish all these studied Crocus taxa between each other. These findings suggest that the broad investigation of the seeds of 8 Crocus taxa (C. abantensis, C. gargaricus subsp. gargaricus, C. danfordiae, C. biflorus subsp. biflorus, C. biflorus subsp. nubigena, C. antalyensis, C. olivieri subsp. olivieri, C. candidus) are necessary to understand whether or not such surface patterns can be confidently utilized to differentiate individual taxa and groupings.

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