Leaf anatomy and morphology of Eugenia rotundifolia Casar., Myrtaceae, applied to the authentication of the "abajurú" commercially sold

Abstract

Eugenia rotundifolia Casar., Myrtaceae, occurs in the sandy coastal environments of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo States. To the best of our knowledge, E. rotundifolia was not included in ethnobotanical and nor in pharmacological research, but its leaves are sold in a public market of Rio de Janeiro City as "abajurú", the common name for Chrysobalanus icaco L., Chrysobalanaceae. C. icaco, in contrast, has been studied and its medicinal effects reported. Since E. rotundifolia is often sold in the public market as "abajurú," this paper describes and compares the leaf anatomy and morphology of E. rotundifolia with C. icaco, previously described in the literature, in order to provide tools for the authentication of commercialized "abajurú." Phyllotaxy; texture; color; margin; midrib prominence; stomata type; type and shape of midrib and petiole vascular bundle; the presence of marginal vein, secretory cavities, which are seen as translucent dots, and overlying cells only in E. rotundifolia; and the presence of trichomes, periclinal divisions in adaxial face epidermis, hypodermis and vascular bundle extensions only in C. icaco were found to be the most distinguishable diagnostic characters.

Ecological anatomy of Eugenia luschnathiana (O.Berg) Klotzsch ex B.D.Jacks. (Myrtaceae) leaves in the Restinga region, state of Ceara

“…As for the coating system, some similarities can be observed with studies carried out with other Eugenia L. species such as presence of thick cuticle, hypoestomatic leaf (DEFAVERI et al, 2011;MORRETES, 2009;ESPOSITO-POLESI et al, 2011;DIAS et al, 2012;SÁ et al, 2016), unicellular tectorial trichomes, presence of trichome scars (DEFAVERI et al, 2011;MORRETES, 2009;ESPOSITO-POLESI et al, 2011) and occurrence of epidermal cells of secretory structure surrounded by cells arranged in a radiated form (DEFAVERI et al, 2011;MORRETES, 2009;DIAS et al, 2012;SÁ et al, 2016).…”

“…Uniseriate epidermis was also found in other Eugenia species (ESPOSITO-POLESI et al, 2011;MORRETES, 2009;DIAS et al, 2012;SÁ et al, 2016;DEFAVERI et al, 2011). Stomata on the same level as the other epidermal cells common in E.…”

“…Myrtaceae presents different types of stomatal complexes, usually presenting stomatal cells at the same level of the epidermis (GOMES et al, 2009), as observed in this study. The species under study has paracytic stomata, being also common in other species of the genus the paracytic (DONATO; MORRETES, 2009), anomocytic stomata (DEFAVERI et al, 2011) or both types mentioned above (DIAS et al, 2012;SÁ et al, 2016).…”

“…In E. rotundifolia (Arn.) Wight, the border region only appears flexed to the abaxial face (DEFAVERI et al, 2011).…”

Leaf anatomy of Cordiera sessilis (Vell.) Kuntze (RUBIACEAE)

“…The anatomical and micromorphological characteristics of the leaf blade are useful in the identification of fragmentary material and in the recognition of the taxon when reproductive structures are not available (Moraes et al, 2009;Defaveri, Arruda, & Sato, 2011) and may be used for phylogenetic studies on Rubiaceae (Andrade et al, 2015).…”