Taxonomic Evaluation of Medicinally Important Plant Families Based on Petal Epidermal Micromorphology and Cluster Analysis

Abstract

The petal epidermal anatomy of twenty seven species of ten different families was conducted to assess the micro morphological differences and confirmation of taxonomic position of plant species. The light microscopy was employed to observe epidermal cell shape, trichomes, silica bodies, cell size and stomata on both adaxial and abaxial surfaces of the petal. The result showed that trichomes were present only in Cucurbita pepo L., while the remaining species had a single layered epidermis without stomata or silica bodies. The considerable variation in epidermal cell shapes, including irregular, hexagonal, pentagonal, and polygonal, was noticed in different plant species. These findings revealed that petal epidermal characteristics of plant species can be utilized as reliable diagnostic tools to assess the interspecific and intra family relationships. Further molecular and phylogenetic analyses should be incorporated along with micro morphological data for refine species identification and investigate evolutionary relationships.