THE SEED ATLAS OF PAKISTAN-XIV.POLYGONACEAE

 

DURDANA KANWAL, RUBINA ABID AND M. QAISER

 

Department of Botany, University of Karachi, Karachi-72570, Pakistan

^*Corresponding author’s email: say2kanwal@yahoo.com

 

Abstract

 

Macro and micro morphological characters of seeds of 40 taxa belonging to the family Polygonaceae were examined by using light and scanning electron microscopy including seed descriptions, keys and micrographs. Considerable variation was observed in seed size, shape, colour and surface at generic and specific levels. The present study provides an additional tool to strengthen the delimitation of taxa on the basis of seed morphology within the family Polygonaceae from Pakistan. This data is further analysed numerically by clustering to trace out the phylogenetic relationship of taxa at various levels.

 

Key words: Seed morphology, Phylogeny, Polygonaceae, Pakistan.