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Diversity of lobate phytoliths in grass leaves from the Sahel region, West Tropical Africa: Tribe Paniceae

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Abstract

Phytoliths are microscopic amorphous silicon dioxide (SiO2.H2O) particles occurring in leaves, internodes, glumes and inflorescence within all members of the grass family Poaceae. Phytoliths of grasses are of particular interest, as they possess morphological features which have encouraged many investigators to identify these plants from which fossil phytoliths might have originated. The present study is a step towards preparing a systematic inventory of grass phytoliths in western tropical Africa. Morphology and dimensions of phytoliths from 66 species belonging to the tribe Paniceae have been studied. Four shape categories of lobate phytoliths have been determined in leaf blade spodograms: bilobate, nodular bilobate, polylobate, quadra-lobate. Bilobate shaped phytoliths are frequently represented in all genera of Paniceae. 13 groups of lobate phytoliths have been distinguished based on significant morphological criteria like shape of outer margins, shape of the shank and number of lobes. A size category system of lobate phytolith dimensions (length, width; length and width of shanks) has been developed by the analysis of average, minimum and maximum values of these dimensions. Application of the size category system results on classifying the major groups into 25 subgroups. The study proves that size and shape can be used to assign some of the lobate phytoliths to their respective genera. Some rarely produced lobate shapes like nodular bilobate and polylobate types could be used together on assemblage basis as markers for definite genera in the tribe Paniceae, e.g. Brachiaria, Panicum, Pennisetum and Setaria. Also, bilobate phytoliths with concave margins have been recorded in five species. Bilobate phytoliths with flattened and convex margins and quadra-lobate shapes are produced by almost all species which therefore resulted in an inconsistent and indefinite relationship with the taxa that produce them. The study shows a correlation between width dimensions of bilobate shapes and their shanks. Greater width dimensions usually connected to thick shanks while short ones are attached to thin shanks. A spectrum on percentages of species producing each type of lobate phytolith has been designed. It is recommended that such spectrum should be carried out for all tribes of Poaceae on phyto-geographical basis which might eliminate the effect of redundancy and multiplicity on the classification of grass phytoliths.

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  1. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of Helwan, 11795, Ain Helwan - Cairo, Egypt

    A. G. Fahmy

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Fahmy, A.G. Diversity of lobate phytoliths in grass leaves from the Sahel region, West Tropical Africa: Tribe Paniceae. Plant Syst Evol 270, 1–23 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-007-0597-z

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