Studies on the pollen morphology of the genus Dianthus ( Caryophyllaceae) from Pakistan

Abstract

Pollen morphological studies of 7 species of the genus Dianthus have been carried out from Pakistan by light microscopy. Pollen grains are Polypantoporate or periporate. There is a great variation in pollen morphology in the species of Dianthus.In Dianthus crinitus very thick exine with much prominent columella is species specific character. The palynological features of exine thickness, size of pollen, pori number, distance between two pores and pori surface are found useful criteria for species delimitation while sculpturing at LM turned out to be a poor criterion. A dichotomous key is constructed for the species identification using the characters that has been studied.