Studies on the Stomata in the Leaf Blades of Gramineous Weeds

Abstract

A comparative morphological study was conducted on the stomatal apparatus in the leaf blades of 52 species of Gramineous weeds collected in the Kyoto-Osaka area (Table 1) and the following results were obtained.
1. The shape of the auxiliary cells was ellipsoid in most of the weed species except for Imperata cylindrica var. koengii and other species with a dumb-bell shape (Fig. 1 and 2).
2. Increase in the size of the stomatal apparatus with increasing polyploidy was observed in three species of the genus Setaria and some species of Alopeculus and Festuca (Table 2).
3. The size of the stomatal apparatus was negatively correlated with the density of the stomata in the leaf blades of the weeds (γ=-0.52) (Table 2, Fig. 3).
4. Most of the C₃ plants had a larger number of stomata in the upper leaf epidermis than in the lower one. The density of the stomata in the leaf epidermis of the C₄ plants was significantly higher than that of the C₃ plants (Fig. 4).