Pollen morphology of the 13 taxa of Scorzonera L. (Asteraceae) from Turkey was investigated by using light(LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). As a result of LM and SEM observations, it was found that the pollen types are generally isopolar, radially symmetric, triangular in polar view, and lophate, with lophae ornamentations that are echinate-perforate and an exine thickness ranging from to μm. | Research Article Turk J Bot 34 (2010) 495-512 © TÜBİTAK doi: Palynological observations on the genus Scorzonera L. (Asteraceae) from north-east Anatolia (Turkey) Zafer TÜRKMEN1, Serdar MAKBUL2, Kamil COŞKUNÇELEBİ3,*, Osman BEYAZOĞLU3 1Giresun University, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Department of Biology, 28049 Giresun - TURKEY 2Rize University, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Department of Biology, 53100 Rize - TURKEY 3Karadeniz Technical University, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Department of Biology, 61080 Trabzon - TURKEY Received: Accepted: Abstract: Pollen morphology of the 13 taxa of Scorzonera L. (Asteraceae) from Turkey was investigated by using light (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). As a result of LM and SEM observations, it was found that the pollen types are generally isopolar, radially symmetric, triangular in polar view, and lophate, with lophae ornamentations that are echinate-perforate and an exine thickness ranging from to μm. The present study found that the lacunae ornamentation of S. laciniata subsp. laciniata and S. tomentosa is perforate-microrugulate, that of S. suberosa and S. cinerea is perforate-microreticulate, that of S. pseudolanata is perforate-psilate, and that of the others is perforate. Prolatespheroidal pollen shapes were observed in S. insica, and oblate-spheroidal shapes were observed in the rest of the examined taxa, . S. tomentosa, S. pseudolanata, and S. sericea. Spine length ranged between and μm among the examined taxa. S. tomentosa ( μm) showed the highest value. S. insica ( μm) showed the lowest value. PCA analysis based on the 16 palynological traits showed that polar axis, equatorial diameter, pollen diameter, colpus length, colpus width, and exine and spine length were the most important characters in explaining total variation among the examined taxa. The results also indicated that pollen characters would be useful in separating the .
