Fruit and Seed Morphology of Some Species of Solanaceae

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

2 The Herbarium, Ecology and Ranges Department, Desert Research Center, Matariya, Egypt

Abstract

The fruit and seed morphology of 24 species, representing seven genera of Solanaceae were investigated by using a binocular stereomicroscope and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), to determine the significance of fruit and seed coat features as taxonomic characters. Morphological characters, including color, texture, shape, fruit type, hilum position, anticlinal shape and periclinal shape. There were three major patterns of seed ornamentation: irregular reticulate, regular reticulate and verrucate reticulate. The dendrogram showed that species could be grouped into two major clusters, the first cluster (I) contains 15 species and divided into two groups, while the second cluster (II) contains nine species that can be divided into two groups. The data proved useful in the construction of a dichotomous indented key to the studied species. Twenty characters were used to create systematic Key using DELTA key-generating programs. The results indicate that the morphological characteristics of fruits and seeds would be helpful for the identification of Solanaceae species.

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