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Morphologic analysis of psidium species (MYRTACEAE) present in Venezuela

Abstract:

The Myrtaceae family is distributed in the tropics and subtropics. In Venezuela, it is mentioned that there are 19 genera and about 246 species. For the genus Psidium there have been 13 species distributed in 23 states of the country. The purpose of this study was to compare the morphological characteristics that are useful for species recognition of Psidium. The analysis is based primarily on the revision of herbarium specimens of VEN, MER, MY and HERZU, supplemented with specimens collected recently from the field. The species studied were: P. acutangulum, P. densicomum, P. guajava, P. guineense, P. maribense, P. persoonii, P. salutare, P. sartorianum and Calycolpus moritzianus from 20 states. A data matrix considering nine species and 15 morphological characteristics (11 vegetative and four reproductive), selected from a list of 49 traits was made. A cluster analysis using the Cluster procedure of SAS® was realized. The species were collected and differentiated into two groups, where the group I was represented by the species P. acutangulum, P. persoonii, P. densicomum, P. guineense and P. guajava characterized principally by the presence of erect leaves, length-width of the medium sheet or low curvature of midrib absent and four or five sepals in the flower. Group II consisted of Calycolpus moritzianus, P. maribense, P. sartorianum and P. salutare, morphologically similar for presenting erect leaves, solitary flowers or biparas tops and four or five sepals. In general, the most useful characters to differentiate species were all vegetative.