Anatomical studies of eight populations of Artemisia spp. in Western Azarbaijan, Iran

Considering Artemisia-Astragalus as the largest community in Iran, currently, basic studies are conducting on Artemisia spp. properties. Ecological-systematical aspects of anatomical studies of eight populations (six species) of the genus were dealt with in Western Azarbaijan. For removal of ligneous hardness and tissues maintenance, after a six-month pretreatment of leave, root, stem and epidermis of five bushes per population, hand-cutting slides prepared for observations under a light photomicroscope. Taking photographs and measurings followed coloring different transversal sections or preparing epidermises. Adaptability and xeromorphic aspects of structural characters were studied. To determine the indicators among characters, useful for categorizing species/populations, ANOVA analysis was used in SPSS 11.2. Results were indicatives of the prevalence of ecological conditions on systematical attributes; therefore, nearly all characters were significantly different between populations (even between populations of a certain species). As another important conclusion, stomata density and length were not useful anatomical factors for taxonomic purposes in Artemisia genus, although many researchers laid emphasis on them.