Pollen diversity of some woody plants in new Damietta city.

Abstract

The pollen morphology of 36 woody species from the New Damietta City, Egypt. Belonging to 20 families of angiosperms, distributed in eighteen dicots and two monocots were investigated. The pollen grains were acetolysed, measured, described and illustrated under light microscopy (LM). Examination of these families revealed great pollen diversity in their qualitative and quantitative characters. The results revealed 58.3% of species with prolate-spheroidal pollen, 16.7% with oblate-spheroidal pollen, 16.7% with subprolate pollen, 5.6% with prolate pollen and 2.7% with suboblate pollen. Tricolporate apertures accounted for almost half of apertures types; triporate, monocolpate, tricolpate, tetra- to penta-porate, tetraporate, pantoporate, inaperturate, tetracolporate and spiral aperture representing the remainder. Exine ornamentations ranged from psilate (33.3%), reticulate (27.7%) to micro-reticulate, scabrate, granulate, echinate each represents (2%) and clavate, verrucate, rugulate, striate, psilate-perforate, clavate-reticulate made up (1%) for each type. On the basis of pollen units, number and type of apertures, exine patterns were great diagnostic significance among the examined taxa. Six major pollen types and nine subtypes included in two groups (polyads and monads) were recognized. Description of pollen types, LM micrographs and a key for identification of the investigated taxa are provided.