Comparison of morphological and anatomical properties of endangered endemic Iris pamphylica and I. masia in Turkey

In this paper, morphological and anatomical properties of Iris pamphylica and Iris masia were compared and the degrees of relationship among them were determined. Also, morphological and anatomical properties of the two subspecies (I. masia subsp. masia and I. masia subsp. dumaniana) of I. masia were detected. I. pamphylica and subsp. dumaniana are endangered endemic geophytes of Turkey. Morphological properties of various organs of the taxa such as scape, bulb, rhizomes, leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds were given. Subsp. dumaniana is separated from subsp. masia with the differences of falls, standards, colour styles and vein colours. In anatomical studies, cross-sections of roots, scapes, leaves and surface sections of the leaves of these taxa were taken. Some different (the structure of pith region and xylem strands numbers in the roots, vascular bundles and micropapilla status in the scapes, leaf outline structure, the presence of sclerenchyma cap at phloem poles of vascular bundles in the scape, extends to both epidermis of sclerenchyma cap, absence and presence of keels, layer numbers of palisade and spongy parenchyma and the presence of bulliform cells in the upper epidermis of leaves) and similar characters (three-sided thickening of the endodermal cells, stomata and mesophyll types, there is sclerenchyma cap in the vascular bundles of leaf and at the corner of the leaf, there is sheath bundle around the vascular bundles, the cells in the centre of mesophyll and crystal types and there are two rows of the vascular bundles in the mesophyll) were found. Length and width of stomata in the upper and lower surfaces of leaves were measured and stomata index were calculated. The leaves of taxa have xeromorphic structure. Many differences were seen in the anatomical and morphological characters of I. masia subsp. dumaniana . So, it was suggested that I. masia subsp. dumaniana might be upgraded to the species category.