PAPER TITLE :EFFECTS OF ALTITUDINAL GRADIENTS ON MORPHOANATOMICAL CHARACTERS OF CHROMOLAENA ODORATA (L.) KING & ROBINSON

FUTA JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE | VOLUME 10 NUMBER 2 2014

Paper Details

  • Author(s) : 1A. A. Akinlabi, 2M. A. Jimoh and 1*S. A. Saheed
  • Abstract:

Understanding the adaptive modifications of plants in relation to changes in environmental conditions,
especially altitudes are very important. This work investigates foliar morphological and anatomical
characters of Chromolaena odorata (L.) King & Robinson growing in three different elevations (280m,
312m and 360m) with the aim of establishing its response to varying elevations. Our results showed that
morphological characters such as mean leaf area reduced significantly (p<0.05) from 66.768± 2.107cm2 to
33.036±1.346cm2 with increase in altitude and mean petiole length reduced significantly (p<0.05) from
1.723±0.260cm to 1.331±0.063cm only at lower altitude when compared to the data for higher altitudes.
Anatomical characters such as mean stomata index significantly (p<0.05) decrease with increase in altitude
and both mean leaf and mesophyll thickness increased significantly (p<0.05) from lower altitude only to
the mid altitude and not to the higher altitude. In conclusion, this study has revealed that plants and in this
case, C. odorata, generally responds to changes in altitudinal gradient with reduction in morphological
characters (leaf area and petiole length) and anatomical character (stomata index) while there appeared to
be a general increase in anatomical characters such as leaf and mesophyll thickness studied. This study has
increased our knowledge on the response of plant to altitudinal gradients.
Keywords: Altitude, Chromolaena odorata, Leaf Anatomy, Stomata Index, Leaf Thickness, Mesophyll
Thickness
INTRODUCTION
Acclimatization studies in