Studying the morphological diversity of Bunium paucifolium and some Elwendia species (Apiaceae)

Abstract The genus Bunium L. (Apiaceae) has about 50 species in the world, distributed in Asia, Europe and North Africa. Recently, Bunium has been divided into two separate genera Elwendia and Bunium. Kerman province is the largest province in Iran and has a wide distribution of these genera especially E. persica, as the most important medicinal and spice species. There are a few published studies on the morphology of these genera, especially on flower and fruit morphology. 20 morphological traits were studied to analyze the differences between species. The most important traits in the first principal component analysis (PCA1) were the number of bracts and umbellets per umbel, stylopodial length, corolla shape, empty fruits and the number of flowers and fruits per umbellet. Corolla shape was raised and vertical in B. paucifolium while horizontal and wide in three other species (E. cylindrica, E. persica and E. wolffii). There are 3 to 4 male flowers in the center of umbellet in E. cylindrica, E. wolffii and B. paucifolium while in E. Persica, no male flowers were observed. This study revealed that morphological traits particularly corolla shape are consistent with the molecular phylogenetic results reported by other researchers.