Abstracts, XIV OPTIMA Meeting, Palermo (Italy) , 9-15

XIV OPTIMA Meeting, Palermo (Italy), 9-15 September 2013
Systematics of European and South-East Asian Zelkova Taxa
JASIŃSKA A. K. 1 , RUCIŃSKA B. 2 , KOZLOWSKI G. 3 , GARFÌ G. 4 , BORATYŃSKA K. 1 , BORATYŃSKI A. 1
1 Institute of Dendrology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kórnik, Poland. E-mail: jasiak9@wp.pl
2 Kazimierz Wielki University, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Institute of Biology and Environment Protection, Department
of Botany, Bydgoszcz, Poland.
3 Department of Botany and Botanic Garden of the University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
4 National Research Council (CNR), Institute of Plant Genetics, Palermo, Italy.
We analyzed morphometric characteristics of leaves from different types of shoots of four Zelkova
taxa: Z. sicula (species endemic to Sicily, discovered in 1991), Z. abelicea (endemic to Crete) and two
species originating from the Caucasus region – Z. carpinifolia and Z. hyrcana (separate species status
of the latter is controversial). The genus Zelkova was formerly widely spread, and its current disjunct
distribution in Europe is the result of the last glaciation. The poster presents a detailed description of
leaves of each species and results of basic statistical analysis and multivariate analyzes. Close resemblance
was found between the leaves of Z. hyrcana and Z carpinifolia. Z. carpinifolia and Z. abelicea
are morphologically very different from each other, and leaves of Z. sicula morphologically place
between the Z. carpinifolia and Z. abelicea. Also, the two studied populations of Z. sicula differ significantly.
This study demonstrated significant variations in the morphology of leaves, depending on
the type of stem (twig), from which they origin, the location of leaves per shoot (age), and that may
lead to misidentification of species based on fossil records of leaves.
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