Comparative study of leaf anatomy and essential oils of the hybrid Mentha X villoso-nervata and its parental species M. lo[n]gifolia and M. spicata
1996
Gavalas, N.
Within the framework of a wider project aiming at the study of the wild growing plants of the genus Mentha in Greece, we comparatively investigated the leaf anatomy and morphometry, as well as the essential oil yield and composition of the hybrid M.X villoso nervata oil yield and composition of the hybrid M. spicata grown in the same local population. The leaf lamina of M.X villoso nervata is by c.83 percent thicker than that of M. longifolia and by c.9 percent of M. spicata. The volume ratios of the leaf histological components in each taxon do not remarkably deviate. The statistical elaboration of the values of 15 anatomical and morphometrical characters showed that the hybrid is anatomically related closer to M. spicata than to M. longifolia. In the three mints we study, and with reference to the upper leaf surface, peribasal cells are more numerous in the glandular trichomes of M. Longifolia. On the lower leaf surface, peribasal cells are more numerous in the trichomes of M.X villoso nervata. M. spicata has the higher essential oil yield and the higher number of glandular trichomes on both leaf sides. Considering that glandular trichomes are the only sites of essential oil, the results obtained from oil yield estimation are in accordance with the morphometric assessment of the number of glandular trichomes on both leaf surfaces. As concerns the study of essential oil composition, M.X villoso nervata resembles the one parent, M. lngiflia, in the derivatives of piperitenone and piperitone, and the other parent, M. spicata, in the high amount of limestone. It differs however, from both parental species grown nearby in that it contains a much higher amount of germacrene D.
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