Morphology of Acer monspessulanum L. in some Iranian forest habitats

In order to investigate the morphological variation of maple (Acer monspessulanum L.) in Iran, five populations from different habitats were studied including Mazandaran, Isfahan, Lorestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and Golestan. The evaluated characteristic were  including: leaf morphological traits (leaf length, width at 1/2 leaf length, leaf thickness, width at 1/4 leaf length, width at 3/4 leaf length, right vein length, middle vein length, left vein length, right lobe length , Middle lobe length, left lobe length, petiole length, sinus, leaf base shape, leaf tip shape, broad shape, relative petiole length), stoma (length, width, area, length to width ratio, circumference, density) and trichome. The results showed that the type of trichome was not different in different habitats and all were multi simple cell types. In spite of a few differences between populations, all populations had parasitic trichome. It sounds that trichome and stomata not to be suitable for Acer monspessulanum recognition. In the study of leaf traits, sampled individuals were separated from 5 populations in 4 clusters. The Yasuj and Mazandaran populations had the closest kinship to each other than the other populations and the Gorgan population had the most distribution. In general, considering the studied traits, it can be concluded that leaf traits including leaf sinus traits, leaf thickness, width at 3/4 leaf length, leaf shape, petiole length and leaf base shape were less affected by the environments that can be used as distinctive traits in the Acer monspessulanum species.