Typological and Frequency Based Study of Opaline Silica (Phytolith) Deposition in Two Common Indian Sorghum L. Species

Abstract

Sorghum of the family Poaceae is one of the important cereal crops of India which accumulate silica in the form of phytoliths. Silica which forms phytoliths has manifold role in the crop plants. It enhances the crop quality, yield, growth and protects the plant from various biotic and abiotic hurdles. Present paper provides brief observations of the morphology, diversity and frequency of opal phytoliths in leaves of Sorghum bicolor and Sorghum halepense. Among all the morphotypes, bilobate phytoliths showed the highest frequency in both species while other forms like trapezoids, prickle hair, micro hair, long micro hair, epidermal long cells, stomata, bulliform and parallelepipedal phytoliths are present in minimal range. Some phytoliths like micro hair and polylobate phytoliths are not present in S. bicolor while they are present in S. halepense. The frequency of all the phytoliths of both the species is remarkably varied whereas the morphometry of these phytoliths is slightly varied. Therefore, these results could contribute in evaluating their taxonomic demarcation as well as will help to investigate their history of cultivation.