Taxonomic characters of fruit, mericarp and seed of some Malvaceae species

Abstract

An investigation of the fruit, mericarp, and seed macro-and micromorphology of seventeen species belonging to nine genera of Malvaceae was performed through light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy to evaluate their taxonomic significance. The studied species demonstrated heterogeneous characteristics of the fruits, mericarp, and seed as shown in general shape, size, color, surface texture, hilum position, and funiculus observed under stereomicroscope. According to the seed coat patterns seen through SEM, the seeds of the studied species showed four different patterns: reticulate, reticulate foveate, reticulate rugose, and scalariform; four different shapes of epidermal cells: irregular polygonal cell, regular polygonal cell, elongated rectangle, and irregular undulate. PRIMER (software, version 6) is a statistical program used to get morphometric analysis. The numerical analysis revealed two main clusters and four groups. Generally, the variation in fruit, mericarp, and seed characters is useful for identification and to separate closely related Malvaceae species.