Turkish Journal of Biology
DOI
-
Abstract
The pollen morphology of 353 species from Karachi, belonging to 67 families of angiosperms, distributed in 58 dicots and 9 monocots were investigated by scanning electron microscope (S.E.M.) and light microscope (L.M.). Examination of these families revealed great pollen diversity in their qualitative and quantitative characters. However, from a phylogenetic and evolutionary point of view, polarity, symmetry, apertural types and exine sculpturing are the most important characters. In general, dicot pollen is relatively more specialized than that of monocots. Dicotyledons are generally characterized by radially symmetrical, isopolar, colporate, colpate and porate pollen, whereas monocotyledon are usually heteropolar, bilaterally symmetric, boat-shaped, monocolpate and monoporate pollen. With few problematic exceptions, the pollen data supports the general classification. The relatively most primitive pollen type i.e. monosulcate (monocolpate), heteropolar, bilaterally symmetric pollen are restricted to the most primitive subclass of dicots i.e., Magnoliidae and to the monocots. In contrast to this, the highly advanced subclass Asteridae exhibits the greatest array of specialized pollen types, especially the family compositae.
Keywords
Palynology, Evolutionary significance, Flora, Karachi.
First Page
365
Last Page
378
Recommended Citation
PERVEEN, ANJUM (2000) "Pollen Characters and Their EvolutionarySignificance With Special Reference to the Flora ofKarachi," Turkish Journal of Biology: Vol. 24: No. 2, Article 20. Available at: https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/biology/vol24/iss2/20
