Evolution of leaf forms among palms

Authors

  • D. Padmanabhan Department of Plant Morphology, School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai 625021, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54991/jop.1992.1126

Keywords:

Evolution, Palm, Leaf forms, Morphology

Abstract

Among the three basic types of palm leaves- the palmate, costapalmate and the pinnate. The palmate form is considered to be the most primitive, the pinnate most advanced and the costapalmate intermediate. Ontogenetic leaf sequences in seedlings indicate that the pinnate form could have been derived from the costapalmate or directly from the palmate type. Persistent, broad and green reins are primitive while the ephemeral and colourless ones are advanced. The hastula of the palmate leaves could be an excrescence as Eames considered it or the remnant of the ventral lobe of an ancestral peltate lamina. The shedding of a large part of the laminal tissue as haut in Phoenix is interpreted as a trend towards specialisation of the intercostal lamina as the sole photosynthetic area of the leaf.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Downloads

Published

1992-12-31

How to Cite

Padmanabhan, D. (1992). Evolution of leaf forms among palms. Journal of Palaeosciences, 41, 204–210. https://doi.org/10.54991/jop.1992.1126

Issue

Section

Research Articles