The leaf and petiole anatomy of the taxa of Acer hyrcanum in Turkey

In this study, leaf and petiole anatomy and the systematic importance of them were revealed in the supspecies namely Acer hyrcanum subsp. hyrcanum, Acer hyrcanum subsp. tauricolum, Acer hyrcanum subsp. keckianum and Acer hyrcanum subsp. sphaerocaryum of Acer hyrcanum from the genus Acer of the family Sapindaceae that are distributed in Turkey. Sections were taken from the leaves and petioles of dried herbarium samples using the paraffin embedding method and studied in detail. Qualitative characters such as petiole hairiness, leaf shape, arrangement of sclerenchyma around vascular bundles, epidermal cell arrangements, and quantitative characters such as epidermis width, petiole diameter, line number of collenchyma cells, cuticle thickness, and diameter of vascular bundles were evaluated. As a result, it is thought that these features can contribute to systematic studies and can be used to understand the morpho-anatomical similarities and differences between taxa.