The morphology of vesicular – arbuscular mycorrhizae in Clintonia borealis and Medeola virginiana

Abstract

During a survey of the vesicular–arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) associations of forest herbs in a deciduous forest in the southern Laurentian mountains in Quebec, two liliaceous species, Clintonia borealis and Medeola virginiana, revealed very distinctive morphology. In both species, once the epidermis was penetrated, the fungus spread towards the centre of the root via intracellular hyphae until the innermost layer of the cortex was reached, at which point the fungus spread laterally and tangentially through the cortical cells adjacent to the endodermis via a series of banana-shaped projections (bobbits). These eventually differentiated into the arbuscules and the VAM might spread from this inner cortical layer back into the outer cortical layers. In C. borealis, the hyphae coiled in the cortex, and vesicles were formed in the upper cortical cells. In M. virginiana, no coiling took place, but extensive diverticulae were produced by the intracellular hyphae in the cortical cells, close to their point of exit, and vesicles were produced in the inner cortex as swellings from the bobbits. These two mycorrhizae have some similarities to one in Colchicum autumnale described by I. Gallaud (1905. Rev. Gen. Bot. 17). Keywords: vesicular–arbuscular mycorrhizae, Clintonia borealis, Medeola virginiana, Liliaceae, morphology.