biologia plantarum

Biologia plantarum 29:54, 1987 | DOI: 10.1007/BF02902318

Genotype differences in the proportion of different tissues in the leaves of spring barley

J. Pazourek¹, L. Nátr¹, Lenka Marková¹

¹ Department of Plant Physiology and Soil Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Charles University, Praha 2, Czechoslovakia

A number of markers characterizing the quantitative anatomical structure of the blade of the first and the third leaf were measured in young plants of eight cultivars of spring barley,Hordeum vulgare L.
The number of vascular bundles was in significant negative correlation with the mean distance between two adjoining bundles (r = -0.8) and also with their area in the cross section (r =-0.82). The proportion of the thickness of the epldermis in the thickness of the leaf and the proportion of the volume of the epldermis in the total volume of the leaf was in the order of 0.25 to 0.30. The proportion of the volume of the photosynthetic tissues in the total volume of the first (or the third) leaf fluctuated from 0.51 (0.53) to 0.58 (0.63). The thickness of the leaf blade and the thickness of the particular leaf tissues and their relative voluminal proportion significantly differed in the basal (B), middle (M), and aplcal (A) parts. No significant correlations were found between the values of the parameters of the first and the third leaf. Significant differences between genotypes concern most of the measured characters. No tendency to unequivocal changes between older and new genotypes could be inferred from the results obtained.
The results are discussed with regard to the necessity of a quantitative description of anatomical structures for the elucidation of physiological processes.

Received: July 30, 1984; Accepted: October 21, 1985; Published: January 1, 1987  Show citation