Pollen morphology of different populations of Urtica dioica(nettle) species in Malatya

In this study, four subspecies of the species of Urtica dioica L., which are subsp. dioica (43 sample), subsp. pubescens (Ledeb.) Domin (1 sample), subsp. kurdistanica Chrtek. (1 sample) and subsp. dioica "U. haussknechtii Boiss." (1 sample), the pollen morphology of 46 samples were investigated under light microscope (LM) and electron microscope (SEM). Plant samples belonging to the taxa of Urtica dioica were collected from the province of Malatya (41), Erzincan (1), Kahramanmaraş (1) and Trabzon (1) by conducting field studies. Two samples were taken from İnönü University Herbarium (INU). The pollen grains taken from the flowers of these samples have been prepared according to the Wodehouse method. Photographs of the pollen grain were taken by light and electron microscope. During the study, polar axis, equatorial axis, ratio of polar axis to equatorial axis, pore diameter, annulus opening, annulus thickness, annulus height, sexine thickness, nexine thickness, ratio of sexine thickness to nexine thickness, intine thickness and spinule length were measured. As a result, pollen properties of the species of Urtica dioica have been determined that pollen of the species of have generally isopolar, triporate and tetraporate, rarely pentaporate, as pollen shape is generally suboblate (75.6 %), oblatae-spheroidal (18.6 %), oblatae (5.6 %) and prolatae-spheroidal (0.15 %), shape of the polar view is circular. As a result of the taxonomic evaluation on the taxa belonging to the Urtica dioica species, only subsp. pubescens was determined to be different from other taxa. In addition, it was determined that ecological and sexual differences did not affect the pollen morphology.