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COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL STUDIES OF SALVADORA SPECIES FOUND IN SINDH, PAKISTAN

FARZANA KOREJO^1,2, SYED ABID ALI^2,*, SYEDA SALEHA TAHIR¹, MUHAMMAD TAHIR RAJPUT¹ AND MUHAMMAD TUAHA AKHTER²

Abstract: Salvadoraceae is a small family comprising of three genera viz., Azima, Dobera & Salvadora. Salvadora 10 species are distributed mainly in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia. In Pakistan it is represented by a single genus Salvadora with so far, two morphologically distinct species i.e., S. persica L. and S. oleoides Decne.  In the present investigation, a comparative and comprehensive leaf, branch, fruit, seed, and pollen grain macro and micro morphological characters have been analyzed and complemented with chemotaxonomy of the seed proteins as biochemical markers for identifications. As expected taxonomical characters within the Salvadora species revealed great vegetative morphological differences, especially plant length and width. Floral morphological characters appear to be more stable, except the fruit colours which are different. Furthermore, sizes and the anatomical characters of the leaf, branch, seed and pollen grain studied by scanning electron microscopy revealed that in contrast to S. oleoides Decne much intra-species variation exist in S. persica L. and at least two types and/or varieties are available in Sindh, Pakistan.

¹Institute of Botany, University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan

²HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi, Karachi-75270, Pakistan

^*Corresponding author: E-mail: abid.ali@iccs.edu