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Systematic significance of pollen morphology and foliar epidermal anatomy of medicinal plants using SEM and LM techniques
Author(s) -
Hameed Ayesha,
Zafar Muhammad,
Ullah Riaz,
Shahat Abdelaaty A.,
Ahmad Mushtaq,
Cheema Saman I.,
Lubna,
Haq IhsanUl,
Sultana Shazia,
Usma Anwer,
Majeed Salman
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
microscopy research and technique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.536
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1097-0029
pISSN - 1059-910X
DOI - 10.1002/jemt.23493
Subject(s) - morphology (biology) , pollen , botany , biology , plant anatomy , plant morphology , anatomy , zoology
Alternative medicinal source is a hot issue within medicine community now a days due to various side effects of allotropic drugs; most importantly the multidrug resistance phenomena. Medicinal plants provide an attractive and effective alternative to modern synthetic drugs as they contain different types of bioactive compounds, having great potential in treatment of various diseases. The present study deals with identification of micromorphological characteristics of 10 ethnomedicinally important plants of Northern Pakistan, that is, Aster himalaicus C. B. Clarke, Artemisia maritima (Berg.) Wellkomm, Isodon rugosus (Wall. ex Benth.), Myricaria squamosal Desv, Pedicularis groenlandica Retz. Polygonum aviculare L, Salvia himmelbauer E. Peter, Swertia kingie Hook. f., Tanacetum dolichophyllum (Kitam) Kitam, Verbascum epixanthinum Boiss. & Heldr. as potential source for pharmaceutical industry. The characters studied were shape and size of pollen, polar diameter and equatorial diameter, epidermal cell shape and size, stomata width and length, trichome shapes, and type. Most of the species had tricolporate pollen type but hexacolporate pollen was also observed in Isodon rugosus , Polygonum aviculare , Salvia himmelbauer. Different types of exine sculpturing observed were foveolate, scabrate, lophate, regular, steriate, and alveolate. Minimum equatorial diameter was noted in Tanacetum dolichophyllum (12.4 μm) and maximum in Myricaria squamosal (20.9 μm). Shape of epidermis cell ranged from rectangular and irregular, polygonal and pentagonal. Different types of stomata like anisocytic, actinocytic, paracytic, and diacytic were noticed. Variations in microscopic characters observed in the current study have great potential to be used as identification tools by the taxonomists for further studies.