Macro-Morphological Leaf Variations Between Bombacaceae and Malvaceae withTheir Significance In Taxonomy and Phylogeny

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faulty of science, Alexandra University, Alexandria, Egypt.

Abstract

New taxonomic opinions of the Bombacaceae, with other families, downgraded the families into subfamilies under the Malvaceae s.l. These opinions are approved by molecular analysis data only. This work has been done to investigate the relation between the two groups on the basis of the external leaf macro-morphological characteristics. Eleven species covering both the two families subjected in this study. Sixteen macro-morphological characters have been investigated, measured, and subjected to clustering analysis using the UPGMA program. Results: The most important characters are those concerning the leaf type, leaf blade apex, leaf blade margin, number of teeth/cm, type of leaf blade venation, and number of main veins. The results obtained gave a clear separation between the taxa of the Bombacaceae from those of Malvaceae without the delimitations of the tribes and sub-tribes. Conclusion: This work confirmed the separation of the two families as separate entities and did not support their downgrades as sub-families. Meanwhile, characters of the Bombacaceae can be primitive to those of the Malvaceae which can be a step in the Malvaceous phylogeny.

Keywords

Egyptian Academic Journal of Biological Sciences. C, Physiology and Molecular Biology
Volume 15, Issue 2
December 2023
Pages 923-932

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