Studies on palms: embryology of Phoenix robusta hook

Abstract

The paper gives an account of the embryology of an endemic species of Phoenix occurring in a corner of Deccan Trap area in the Western Ghats at Mulsi, a taluka in Poona District. It deals with the morphology of male and female flowers, pollen grains, ovule, development of male and female gametophytes, endosperm and embryo in that species. The tree trunk is 5-7 m high, tessellated as in Cycas due to comparatively small size of the old leaf-sheath scars. The plants are dioecious. The pollen grains are round, monocolpate, smooth and thick-walled. They are shed at 2-celled stage. The ovules are bitegmic, crassinucellate and anatropous. Fertilization is porogamous. Endosperm is free-nuclear to begin with but becomes cellular later. The embryo develops in two ways; according to (1)Geum variation and (2)Polygonum variation of the Asterad type. Micropyle is terminal in early stages, but shifts to the side of the seed wall later. Previous literature, etc., on the genus has been cited in the previous paper by Mahabale and Biradar (1968) and, therefore, is not given here.