Irena RACA, Milica JOVANOVIC, Irena LJUBISAVLJEVIC, Marina JUSKOVIC, Vladimir RANDELOVIC

Morphological and leaf anatomical variability of Crocus cf. heuffelianus Herb. (Iridaceae) populations from the different habitats of the Balkan Peninsula

Crocus cf. heuffelianus Herb. belongs to the series Verni Mathew and presents one of the most complex and critical taxa withinthe whole genus Crocus L. Depending on different authors, C. cf. heuffelianus is sometimes split into different taxa (e.g., C. scepusiensis(Rehmer & Wol.) Borbás ex Kulcz., C. vittatus Schloss. & Vuk., nom. illeg.). In order to disentangle the complicated taxonomical statusof this species and to determine the degree of its morphoanatomical variability in the different environmental conditions, a comparativeinvestigation of plant morphology and leaf anatomy of seven populations from the Balkan Peninsula was carried out. Morphometricanalysis included meristic, quantitative, and qualitative parameters. To examine the leaf anatomy, fresh cross sections were made bymanual microtome and stained with safranin and alcian blue. Statistical analyses, such as principal component analysis and canonicaldiscriminant analysis revealed significant differences between populations, indicating the presence of distinct groups correlating withtheir geographical distribution. The largest contribution to the differentiation of analyzed populations is made by the characters thatare related to corms, perigone segments, leaves, and anthers, followed by the general outlook of cross sections, palisade and spongyparenchyma, abaxial epidermal cells, and vascular bundle features. These findings confirm that from the morphoanatomical point ofview Balkanian C. cf. heuffelianus presents an aggregate of species.

PDF

___

Akan H, Eker I, Satıl F (2007). The morphological and anatomical properties of endemic Crocus leichtlinii D. Dewar Bowles (Iridaceae) in Turkey. Pakistan Journal of Botany 39 (3): 711- 718.
Beck Mannagetta G (1903). Flora Bosne, Hercegovine i novopazarskog sandžaka. I dio: Gymnospaermae i Monocotyledones. Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Hercegovini: 216-218 (in Bosnian).
Brighton CA, Mathew B, Marchant CJ (1973). Chromosome counts in the genus Crocus (Iridaceae). Kew Bulletin 28 (3): 451-464. doi: 10.2307/4108890
Brighton C (1976). Cytological problems in the genus Crocus (Iridaceae): I. Crocus vernus aggregate. Kew Bulletin 31 (1): 33-46.
Candan F (2015a). Comparative morphological and leaf anatomical investigations of Crocus flavus Weston from Turkey. International Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries 3 (3): 99-104.
Candan F (2015b). Morphological and leaf anatomical investigations on 2 yellow flowered endemic taxa of Crocus L. (Crocus ancyrensis, Crocus siehenaus) from Turkey. International Journal of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries 3 (3): 93-98.
Coşkun F, Selvi S, Satıl F (2010). Phylogenetic relationships of some Turkish Crocus (Iridaceae) taxa based on morphological and anatomical characters. Turkish Journal of Botany 34: 171-178. doi:10.3906/bot-0906-53
Erol O, Küçüker O (2007). Leaf anatomy of some endemic Crocus L. (Iridaceae) taxa from Western Anatolia. International Journal of Botany 3 (3): 290-295. doi: 10.3923/ijb.2007.290.295
Gligorijević S, Pejčinović D (1983). Contribution to the methodology of anatomical sections preparation. Acta biologiae et medicinae experimentalis 8: 43-45.
Harpke D, Carta A, Tomović G, Ranđelović V, Ranđelović N et al. (2014). Phylogeny, karyotype evolution and taxonomy of Crocus series Verni (Iridaceae). Plant Systematics and Evolution 300 (6): 309-325. doi: 10.1007/s00606-014-1074-0
Harpke D, Kerndorff H, Raca I, Pasche E (2017). A new Serbian endemic species of the genus Crocus (Iridaceae). Biologica Nyssana 8 (1): 7-13. doi: 10.1007/s00606-014-1074-0
Kandemir N (2009). Morphology, anatomy and ecology of critically endangered endemic Crocus pestalozzae Boiss. (Iridaceae) in North-West Turkey. Bangladesh Journal of Botany 38 (2): 127- 132. doi: 10.3329/bjb.v38i2.5136
Kandemir N (2010). A morphological and anatomical investigation about two rare and endemic Crocus taxa (Iridaceae) from Southern Anatolia. EurAsian Journal of BioSciences 4: 54-62. doi: 10.5053/ejobios.2010.4.0.7
Kandemir N (2011). Comparative leaf anatomy of some endemic Crocus L. taxa from Turkey. Bangladesh Journal of Botany 40 (2): 155-162. doi: 10.3329/bjb.v40i2.9771
Kandemir N, Çelik A, Yayla F (2012). Comparative anatomic and ecologic investigation on some endemic Crocus taxa (Iridaceae) in Turkey. Pakistan Journal of Botany 44 (3): 1065-1074.
Karamplianis T, Tsiftsis S, Constantinidis T (2013). The genus Crocus (Iridaceae) in Greece: some noteworthy floristic records and karyotypes. Phytologia Balcanica 19 (1): 53-66.
Karasawa K (1950). Note on the cytology of Crocus. Genetica 25: 188-192. doi: 10.1007/BF01784831
Karasawa K (1951). On meiotic chromosomes in the genus Crocus. Genetica 25: 530-531. doi: 10.1007/BF01784839
Kerndorff H, Pasche E, Harpke D (2015). The genus Crocus (Liliiflorae, Iridaceae): life-cycle, morphology, phenotypic characteristics, and taxonomical relevant parameters. Stapfia 103: 27-65.
Mather K (1932). Chromosome variation in Crocus. I. Journal of Genetics 26: 129-142. doi: 10.1007/BF02991449
Mathew B (1982). The Crocus. A revision of the genus Crocus (Iridaceae). London, England: Batsford Ltd.
Mathew B, Petersen G, Seberg O (2009). A reassessment of Crocus based on molecular analysis. The Plantsman 8 (1): 50-57.
Mihaly A, Kricfalusy V (1997). Population biology and ecology of Crocus heuffelianus Herb. (Iridaceae) in Ukraine. Linzer Biologische Beiträge 29 (2): 641-681.
Miljković M, Ranđelović V, Harpke D (2016). A new species of Crocus (Iridaceae) from southern Albania (SW Balkan Peninsula). Phytotaxa 265 (1): 39-49. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/ phytotaxa.265.1.3
Milović M (2016). Rod Crocus L. (Iridaceae) u flori Hrvatske. Glasnik Hrvatskog botaničkog društva 4 (2): 4-20 (in Croatian).
Mosolygó Á, Sramkó G, Barabás S, Czeglédi L, Jávor A et al. (2016). Molecular genetic evidence for allotetraploid hybrid speciation in the genus Crocus L. (Iridaceae). Phytotaxa 258 (2): 121-136. doi: 10.11646/phytotaxa.258.2.2
Özdemir AY, Özdemir A, Özdemir C (2010). Statistical comparative leaf anatomy of some Crocus L. taxa. Asian Journal of Mathematics and Statistics 3 (1): 16-24. doi: 10.3923/ ajms.2010.16.24
Raca I, Ljubisavljević I, Jušković M, Ranđelović N, Ranđelović V (2017). Comparative anatomical study of the taxa from series Verni Mathew (Crocus L.) in Serbia. Biologica Nyssana 8 (1): 15-22. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.963053
Ranđelović N, Hill DA, Ranđelović V (1990). The genus Crocus L. in Serbia. Belgrade, Serbia: The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Ranđelović N, Ranđelović V, Hristovski N (2012). Crocus jablanicensis (Iridaceae), a new species from the Republic of Macedonia, Balkan Peninsula. Annales Botanici Fennici 49: 99-102. doi: 10.5735/085.049.0116
Rafiński JN, Passakas T (1976). Chromosomal differentiation within Crocus vernus agg. (Iridaceae) in the Carpathian Mts. Plant Systematics and Evolution 125: 1-8. doi: 10.1007/ BF00986125
Rudall P, Mathew B (1990). Leaf anatomy in Crocus (Iridaceae). Kew Bulletin 45 (3): 535-544.
Rukšāns J (2017). The world of Crocuses. Riga, Latvia: Latvian Academy of Sciences.
Satıl F, Selvi S (2007). An anatomical and ecological study of some Crocus L. taxa (Iridaceae) from the west part of Turkey. Acta Botanica Croatica 66 (1): 25-33.
Schneider CA, Rasband WS, Eliceiri KW (2012). NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis. Nature Methods 9 (7): 671- 675. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2089
Shuka L (2008). Crocus hadriaticus Herbert, a new near endemic species for the flora of Albania. In: International Conference on Biological and Environmental Sciences; Tirana, Albania. pp. 111-112.
StatSoft, Inc. (2004). STATISTICA (data analysis software system), version 7. www.statsoft.com.
Yetişen K, Şen U, Yıldırım T, Özdemir C (2013). Morphological and anatomical study on endemic Crocus olivieri Gay subsp. istanbulensis Mathew subspecies (Iridaceae). Anadolu University Journal of Science and Technology-C Life Sciences and Biotechnology 3 (1): 31-37.