MORPHOLOGY AND ANATOMY OF MYRTACEAE SEEDLINGS OCCURRING IN A SEMIDECIDUOUS SEASONAL FOREST

Abstract

Seedlings of six species of Myrtaceae, which occur in Seasonal Semideciduous Forest, were morphologically and anatomically investigated, as a contribution to studies on forest recovery, preservation of native species and for silviculture. Seedlings were obtained from seeds collected in a forest reserve at “Estação Ecológica de Caiuá”, Diamante do Norte, Brazil, and kept in a greenhouse. The seedlings were morphologically described, embedded in historesin and sectioned in a rotation microtome. The seedlings are cryptocotylar, hypogeal, with axial root, reserve cotyledons, long epicotyl and two eophylls in general opposite, with limbo that exhibits morphological variation between species. The primary roots are polyarch, with a parenchymatic cortex with exodermis and endodermis not always identifiable, and a central cylinder with reduced vascular secondary growth. Cotyledons exhibit homogeneous starch-rich parenchyma. The epicotyl is stem in nature. Eophylls are dorsiventral, hypostomatic, with hypodermis in only two species. All investigated species have morphologically similar seedlings, showing differences only in eophyll morphology between species. The seedling anatomy is also similar, but with hypodermis only in the eophylls of Plinia rivularis and Myrcianthes pungens.