Chaves et al. 2015 (Conference Paper) Guzmania, leaf

Leaf anatomy of Guzmania Ruiz & Pav. (Bromeliaceae) occurring in Ceará, Brazil

Author(s):—Bruno Edson Chaves, Francisco Yago Elias de Castro Dias, Ricardo Loyola Moura & Gladys Flávia de Albuquerque Melo-de-Pinna in Benko-Iseppon, A.M.; Alves, M. & Louzada, R. (2015) An overview and abstracts of the First World Congress on Bromeliaceae Evolution. Rodriguésia 66(2): A1-A66.

Publication:— (2015).

Abstract:—In Brazil there are nine species of Guzmania Ruiz & Pav. (Tillandsioideae), three of them in the Northeast: G. lingulata (L.) Mez, G. monostachia (L.) Rusby ex Mez and G. sanguinea (André) André ex Mez. Ceará is theonly state in the Northeast where the three aforementioned species exist. This work aimed to characterize theanatomical structures, in cross section, of leaves of Guzmania spp. occurring in Ceará, focusing on the charactersuseful for taxonomy. For the histological slides, central and margin of the middle third of the leaf and central andedge of the sheath region were selected, followed then by the usual procedures in plant anatomy; the permanentslides were stained with Alcian blue and Safranin (4: 1) and set in synthetic resin. Qualitatively, the species werecompared by cluster analysis. We identified 59 states of discriminative characters standing out in the middle region of the leaf: the margin format, straight with projection toward the abaxial in G. sanguinea and sharp curvedabaxial face in the others; cell number of trichomes stalk 2 to 3 in G. sanguinea and in the remaining 3 to 4; fiber cap on the vascular bundles in G. lingulata and G. monostachia; circular 1st order bundle in G. lingulata and elliptical in the other species; internerval distance more than 12 cells in G. sanguinea and up to 12 cells in otherspecies. The sheath was considered the most distinctive feature: the number of vascular bundles in the marginwere 2 in G. lingulata and 3 in the other species; water storage parenchyma facing the adaxial side is larger thanthat facing the abaxial in G. lingulata, in other species they are the same size; vascular bundles are equidistant in G. lingulata and G. sanguinea and slightly facing abaxial epidermis in G. monostachia. From the cluster analysis,it was verified that, anatomically, G. lingulata and G. monostachia are closer to each other than G. sanguinea.

Keywords:—Taxonomy; Leaf Characters; Tillandsioideae.