Morphology, anatomy and ecology of endemic species Crocus pestalozzae Boiss. (Iridaceae), have been investigated during flowering period in early spring. The bulbous plant grows in moist heath, meadowland and rocky areas in the North-West of Turkey. Morphological properties of plant parts have been described in detail. Transverse sections of roots, stems and leaves have been illustrated and the anatomical characters of arms, keel, papillae, mesophyll and vascular bundles of leaf have been described. Population status of the plant has also been determined.   Key words: Crocus pestalozzae Boiss.; Endemic; Morphology; Anatomy; Ecology; Turkey   DOI: 10.3329/bjb.v38i2.5136 Bangladesh J. Bot. 38(2): 127-132, 2009 (December)

Iris L. is one of the important genus of family Iridaceae, consist of 56 taxa naturally occurred in Turkey. The similarities and variations in the subgenus overlapping the taxonomic positions of the species in the subgenera and needs anatomical assessment especially by microscopic techniques. In this study, the taxonomic significance of leaf anatomical characters of 10 Iris subgenus Scorpiris taxa were studied in detail and the relationship among these taxa were evaluated using microscopy techniques. Fresh leaf samples of species were fixed in 70% alcohol solution for anatomical observation under microscope. Eleven different micromorphological features were statistically analyzed to delimit the species in subgenus. Based on morphological and anatomical similarities, we studied relationships among; (1) ssp. turcica, ssp. caucasica, I. nezahatiae and I. pseudocaucasica; (2) correlation between ssp. turcica and ssp. caucasica; (3) association of I. galatica, I. persica, ssp. margaretiae and ssp. stenophylla with each other; (4) relationship between ssp. stenophylla and ssp. margaretiae; and (5) relevance between I. aucheri and I. peshmeniana. Moreover, the taxonomy of subgenus Scorpiris has been discussed in detail with novel and diagnostic features based on micromorphological physiognomies. We found that four species in this study are endemic to Turkey, while seven are critically endangered geophytes in the country. The leaf anatomical characteristics of 10 taxa were divided into three groups. Main aim of this research was to study the taxonomy of the complex subgenus Scorpiris through microscopic techniques.

In this study, the morphological and anatomical properties of endemic Iris nezahatiae Güner & H. Duman were determined and discussed with Iris caucasica Hoffm. in terms of similar and different properties. I. nezahatiae is placed in juno irises. This species is a spring geophyte of Turkey and has flowers in varied colours. It distributes only in the vicinity of Yusufeli (Artvin) in Turkey and is under threat of exctinction. The species is a bulbous and perennial plant and has storage roots. The leaves and flowers of I. nezahatiae have different morphologic properties. In anatomical research, the differences were observed in the central cylinder of root, stem and mesophyll layer of leaf. Consequently, some morphologic and anatomic characters between two close taxa were determined that can be selecred as discriminative characters. Stomata index of the species was also calculated

Relationships among 14 Crocus L. taxa such as, C. ancyrensis (Herbert) IntroductionGenus Crocus ( Crocus taxa have an important place among the geophyte plants. Because of this beatiful flowers, they are used as ornamental plants in the balconies, terraces and roof gardens (specially, C. baytopiorum, ssp. mazziaricus, ssp. lycius and ssp. damascenus). People in some regions of Anatolia make a local cheese called "herbed cheese" and "Crocus pilaf" from Crocus species (specially ssp. damascenus) (Baytop 1984). The extract of Crocus taxa has antitumor, antimutagenic and cytototic activities (Nair et al. 1991, Abdullaev 2003. Therefore, they are used for Behçet and gut diseases, treatment of joint pains and cancer research, recently.The leaf anatomy of Crocus, leaf anatomy and phylogeny of Iridaceae family, the comparative morpho-anatomical, phylogenetic relationships and genetic diversity studies on the genus Crocus have been investigated by Rudall and Mathew (1990), Rudall and Goldblatt (1991), Pulido et al. (2004), Kandemir (2009Kandemir ( , 2010, Petersen et al. (2008) and Alavi-Kia et al. (2008). Rudall and Mathew (1990) reported that the leaves of most Crocus species have a unique and distinctive shape in cross section and have a square and rectangular keel in the center and two

Ecological relationships of some Iris taxa belonging to subgenera Hermodactyloides (I. danfordiae, I. histrio subsp. aintabensis, I. histrio subsp. histrio, I. reticulata, I. bakeriana, I. pamphylica) and Scorpiris (I. aucheri and I. persica) have been compared and relationships between taxa have been determined. These taxa are geophytes and flower in Spring. I. danfordiae, I. pamphylica and subsp. aintabensis are endemic to Turkey. I. reticulata and I. persica have widespread distribution while I. aucheri, subsp. aintabensis, subsp. histrio, I. pamphylica and I. bakeriana have restricted distribution in Turkey. Soil samples of the taxa were collected during flowering periods and physical and chemical properties (texture class, total salinity %, pH, CaCO3 %, organic matter %, N %, P kg/da, K kg/da, Ca , Mg, Mn, Cu, Fe and Zn ppm) were determined. The correlations between the soil analyses and taxa were evaluated using regression analysis. The P and CaCOsub>3 values were found to be more effective than the other soil factors in the distributions of investigated taxa. Key words: Iris taxa; Endemic; Rare; Ecological properties; Relationship DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjb.v40i2.9774   Bangladesh J. Bot. 40(2): 177-184, 2011 (December)

No abstract

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) including free radicals such as hydroxyl radicals (OH • ), singlet oxygen ( 1 O 2 ), superoxide anion radicals (O 2•-), and non-free radical species such as hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) are diverse kinds of activated oxygen and mostly produced by exogenous factors or oxidation product of biological reactions [1][2][3] . ROS have created considerable interest among scientists in the recent years [4][5][6] . Their wide range of effects that are of medicinal and biological interest have led to several experimental studies [7][8][9] . Additionally, it is well-known that ROS induce oxidative damage to biomolecules such as lipids, proteins, carbohydrates and deoxyribonucleic acids [10][11][12] , which might induce cancer, ageing, and other multitude of diseases [13][14][15][16] . In addition, ROS has also been implicated in more than 100 diseases such as heart disease, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, malaria, stroke, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and cancer [17][18][19][20] .The plant kingdom, including medicinal and dietary plants, offers many natural phytochemicals that include phenolic diterpenes, triterpenes, flavonoids, phenolic acids and sterols [21][22][23] . Antiinflammatory, antioxidant and anticancer activities reported to be possessed by these compounds might have resulted from prevention of oxidative damage [24,25] . There is rising interest in endemic species because these can be used for preparing phytopharmaceuticals with considerable antioxidant potential or for the production of raw materials and health confidants [26][27][28] . Antioxidant compounds are molecules that can inhibit or delay the oxidation of lipids or other biomolecules by inhibiting the initiation and propagation of oxidative chain reactions [29] . Some plants synthesize large amounts of vitamin C, vitamin E, and carotenoids, which are well-known antioxidants [30][31][32][33] . Phenolic compounds are also widely distributed in plants and have been found to possess antioxidative potential as well [34] . Natural

In this study, antioxidant, antimicrobial activities and effects on DNA damage of above and below-ground extracts of Heliotropium samolifolium subsp. erzurumicum were determined. This subspecies distributes only in the vicinity of Olur (Erzurum) in Turkey and is known as Erzurum Bambulu by the people. Heliotropium L. species include secondary metabolities such as; pyrrolizidine alkaloids, terpenoids, saponins, phenols, flavonoids, tannis, and steroids. The above and below-ground extracts of the subspecies were prepared using different organic solvents. For the antioxidant studies, DPPH and total phenolic content calculation methods were applied. The antimicrobial activity tests of the extracts were performed using four different standard strains, a yeast and MIC (Minimum Inhibition Concentration) method. The effects on DNA damage of plant extracts were explained using pBR322 plasmid DNA. The below-ground ethanol extract of the subspecies was seen to have stronger antimicrobial activity. According to antioxidant data, the highest activity was found in above-ground ethanol+aqueous, chloroform and below-ground ethanol extracts. Also, the below-ground aqueous and chloroform extracts had a greater effect on the open ring form of pBR322 plasmid DNA. It was determined that the below-ground extracts of the subspecies were more effective than the above ground extracts. It was suggested that the extracts obtained from this subspecies may be used in medicine industry and folk medicine.