PJB-2010-471
TAXONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SEED MICROMORPHOLOGY IN HIMALAYAN BEGONIAS: SEM ANALYSIS
SANGEETA RAJBHANDARY AND KRISHNA K. SHRESTHA
Abstract
Seed morphology plays an important role for the taxonomic purposes, but inspite of the importance and stability of seed characters in systematics, very little work has been done on seed morphology of Begonia. The seeds of Begonia are small and not differentiated easily with the naked eye. In fact, they are so small that observation of many of their taxonomically important features is possible only with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). In this paper, the external morphology of the seeds of 23 Nepalese Begonia species, belonging to five sections (Diploclinium, Monopteron, Platycentrum, Putzeysia and Sphenanthera) was studied with SEM techniques. It has been revealed that the differences in seed characteristics were not sufficient to use for sectional delimitation of Nepalese Begonia, but helped to separate the Begonia at species level.
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