Foliar sclereids in tea and its wild allies, with reference to their taxonomy
Wei Zhang A B , Yuxi Hu A , Zhenyu Li A E , Pingsheng Wang C and Mei Xu DA State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
B Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
C Tea Research Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Menghai 666201, China.
D College of Horticulture, South China Agriculture University, Guangzhou 510642, China.
E Corresponding author. Email: Chinaflora@yahoo.cn
Australian Systematic Botany 22(4) 286-295 https://doi.org/10.1071/SB08027
Submitted: 3 June 2008 Accepted: 23 March 2009 Published: 31 August 2009
Abstract
Camellia sinensis (L.) O.Kuntze and most of its wild allies are used for tea throughout China and in many other parts of the world. Although they all belong to Camellia section Thea, their infrasectional classification remains controversial, resulting from heavy reliance on macromorphological features. Furthermore, the identification of tea from the fragments of processed leaves is quite difficult because of the lack of reliable characters. Here, foliar sclereids of 28 species and five varieties were investigated and used to explore their utility in addressing taxonomic problems and identification of commercial teas. Our data showed that foliar sclereids exhibit a wide diversity in this section. They could be divided into 12 types (including a newly recorded dendritic type) and two distribution patterns in the leaf blade. Their forms, type combinations and distribution patterns are reliable features, not particularly influenced by environmental factors, although their distribution density sometimes varies. In addition, they appear constant in individuals of different ages within the same wild population. We conclude that foliar sclereids in the section Thea are relatively stable and their diversity and regularity are of some taxonomic value.
Acknowledgements
We thank the three anonymous reviewers and the subject editor for their valuable suggestions and comments on the manuscript. We also thank PE (Chinese National Herbarium of Institute of Botany, CAS) and the collectors mentioned above for providing the materials, Dr Shi-xiong Yang for the material identification, Professor Sing-chi Chen and David E. Boufford for reviewing the manuscript. This work was funded by the key project of the National Basic Research of China (Grant 973-2006 CB 403206).
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