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Morphology, Structure, Function And Evolution Of Infrastaminal Scales In Cuscuta (Convolvulaceae), Stephanie Riviere
Morphology, Structure, Function And Evolution Of Infrastaminal Scales In Cuscuta (Convolvulaceae), Stephanie Riviere
Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)
Cuscuta (dodder, Convolvulaceae) is a genus of about 200 species of obligate stem parasites of cosmopolitan distribution. Infrastaminal scales (IFS) are staminode-like formations that surround the ovary in the flowers of dodders. Their morphological diversity has historically provided some of the most useful taxonomic diagnostic characters at the species-level, however, their function had not been determined. I performed a comparative study of the IFS in 147 taxa using light, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and results were analyzed in relation to a Cuscuta phylogeny obtained from a combined analysis of rbcL and 26S rDNA gene sequences. To test the hypothesis …