Micromorphological Investigation in Leaf Epidermis of Some Monocotyledons Taxa

Abstract

T WENTY species that belong to 13 genera under six families, two belonging to order Asparagales and four to order Liliales, are subjected in this recent work. Micro-morphological leaf characters using both Light and Scanning Electron microscopes have been studied. The pavement cells, hairs, prickles and stomatal characters beside stomatal density and index have been calculated. The data obtained has been subjected to clustering analyses using Paleontological Statistics (PAST) program. The results which were obtained from this study do not give clear separations between the two orders or even the families and considered the studied six families have common leaf characters. Meanwhile, characters of epidermal cells, hairs, papillae, prickles, and stomata can give clear features in the identification of some species. Hence, we can conclude that the separation of these orders and families and their taxonomic ranking need further investigation to clarify the perfect relation between them.