Morphological and anatomical relationships in Alpine-Dinaric populations of the genus Iris L., Pallidae series (A. Kern.) Trinajstić (Iridaceae)

Abstract

The relationships within the Alpine-Dinaric and cultivated populations of the genus Iris, Pallidae series, have been analysed. Seven morphological characteristics (stem length, length of the largest leaf, greatest width of the largest leaf, length of the smallest leaf, greatest width of the smallest leaf, the number of leaves and the number of flowers) and seven leaf anatomical (length and width of stomata, length and width of epidermal cells, number of stomata and epidermal cells per mm'- and length of styloids) have been used for this purpose. Relationships between populations were analysed by methods of multivariate statistics (Cluster, PCA and MST analyses). The results of Cluster and PCA analyses showed that, owing to leaf anatomical features, five main groups of the populations could be distinguished within the Pallidae series. Four of them belong to the species L. pallida, L. cengialti, L. illyrica and I. pseudopallida. The MST analyses showed that the fifth group contained mixed populations of I. illyrica and I. pseudopallida. The results point at the lack of taxonomic usefulness of the leaf anatomical features analysed and indicate that they caused successive geographical differentiation of the populations of the Pallidae series.