Comparative morphological and anatomical study of Primula macrocalix Bge. and Primula sibthorpii Hoffm. leaves growing in Dagestan

Abstract

The article presents the results of morphological and anatomical leaves study of wild species Primula macrocalix Bge. and Primula sibthorpii Hoffm. promising for horticulture growing in Dagestan. Anatomic and diagnostic traits of plant leaves, allowing their interspecies identification in the virginile period were revealed. It was found that the upper epiderm cells of P. sibthorpii were distinguished by larger sizes compared to the epidermal cells of P. macrocalix. According to the obtained data, P. macrocalix and P. sibthorpii leaves are amphistomatal, stomatal apparatus is anomocytic. In early spring flowering P. sibthorpii, the number of stomata was almost 2 times that of the mid-spring P. macrocalix. The number of stomata on P. sibthorpii leaves was almost 2 times that of P. macrocalix. The stomatal index of P. macrocalix upper epiderm leaf amounted to10.5± 2.6% and the lower epiderm was 2 times higher - 22.4%. The stomatal index of P. sibthorpii upper epiderm leaf amounted to16.7± 4.2% and the lower epiderm was 26.8± 7.2%. The index characteristic of primula species leaves showed an average variation coefficient, which is an indicator of their stomatographic traits' stability. The data obtained allow to reliably assess the authenticity of the primula species in question and can serve as a basis when compiling anatomical atlases of wild plants, as well as creating keys for determining the taxonomic species affiliation according to anatomical features.