Abstract:
This study was conducted to disentangle the influence of environmental variables on the spatial
patterns in leaf epidermal traits (i.e. stomatal occurrence, stomatal traits and epidermal cells)
in some morphologically different populations of Dipcadi filamentosumMedik in Nigeria. The
stomatal occurrence and the stomatal length (SL), stomatal width (SW), stomatal size (SS),
stomatal density (SD) and stomatal index (SI) of 13 ecotypes of D. filamentosum from 11 locations
in Nigeria were studied. All the populations were amphistomatous with 100% tetracytic stomatal
complex type. The epidermal cells were rectangular in shape with straight to curve anticlinal
cell wall pattern. Contrarily, the species from the Northern eco-geographical location had larger
SS, higher SD, longer SL, higher SI and wider SW and higher epidermal cell density than those
from the Southern eco-geographical location where there is higher annual rainfall and lower
temperature. Temperature and rainfall affected SD, SI and SL, SS and SW whereas the epidermal
cells and anticlinal cell walls were not affected. Variations were observed within and between
the populations from the 4 eco-geographical locations.The variables observed among the 4 ecogeographical populations of D.filamentosumshowed that effects of environmental factors are
partial on the leaf epidermal traits of the plant. The evidences from the studied characters are
good taxonomic features or indicators hence they can be used to separate them to different species
