Abstract
The foliar anatomy of 12 species of Asteraceae around Ile Ife in South Western, Nigeria was described. The distinguishing characteristics of taxonomic value include; venation patterns, areole shapes, number of veinlet endings, trichome types, arrangement of vascular bundles. Venation types are actinodromous, craspedodromous or camptodromous, the presence of rectangular areoles are predominant in the species studied and this show family characteristics. However, the presence of crystal druses in the areoles of C. odorata is of diagnostic importance. The type of vascular bundle in the leaf midribs is classificatory as it divided the taxa studied into two groups; vascular bundles are amphicribal in Bidens pilosa, Chromolaena odorata, Launaea taraxacifolia, Crassocephalum crepidiodes, Tridax procumbens and Vernonia cinerea and bicollateral in Ageratum conyzoides, Aspilia africana, Emilia praetermissa, Synedrella nodiflora, Tithonia diversifolia and Vernonia amygdalina. Key words: Asteraceae, foliar, taxonomic, venation, areole.
Highlights
Asteraceae (Compositae) is a very large cosmopolitan family whose members are highly advanced
The present study reported the use of foliar anatomy in establishing the taxonomic relationships between twelve species of Asteraceae
A survey of literature of leaf anatomy shows that data obtained from it can be used amply for the clarification of taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships
Summary
Asteraceae (Compositae) is a very large cosmopolitan family whose members are highly advanced. Morphological attributes of vegetative organs have often constituted the mainstay of taxonomic studies in plants (Polhill, 1968; Pilbeam and Bell, 1979; Adedeji, 2005) and are very important in classification. Taxonomic decision based on epidermal studies are quite reliable because they are not really affected by environmental conditions (Barthlott, 1981), comparative plant epidermal studies have been found to be reliable in taxonomy and systematics (Stace, 1969; Ogunkunle and Oladele, 2000; Metcalfe and Chalk, 1950, 1979; Naik and Nigrude, 1981; Palmer and Tucker, 1981; Adedeji, 2004; Adedeji and Illoh, 2004) all the authors have all stressed the taxonomic importance of anatomical features which along with other characters form taxonomic, identification and classification of plants.
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