Morphological and anatomical investigation on endemic Cota melanoloma and Cota antitaurica (Asteraceae) in Turkey

Abstract

Anthemis section Cota was accepted as separate genus recently. Genus Cota is represented by 24 taxa in Turkey. Some of them have economic importance because of their uses for various purposes such as obtaining drugs, food and dye. etc. In this study, Cota melanoloma subsp. melanoloma, C. melanoloma subsp. trapezuntica and C. antitaurica were studied morphologically and anatomically. Three of them are endemic to Turkey. C. antitaurica is only known from the type locality and critically endangered species, while C. melanoloma is distributed in only northern Anatolia. As the results, the diagnostic characteristics, synonyms, flowering and fruiting times, habitat properties, distributions and threat categories of each taxon are presented. The most important morphological characteristics for more proper discrimination the species are determined as the shape of capitula and palea, indumentum of stem and leaf. The detailed anatomical studies indicate the diagnostic characteristics as both hair and vascular bundle length and pith of the stems, hair length and length/width ratio and the type of stomata of the leaves, the layer number of parenchymatic ray cells and the cortex length of the roots.