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Anatomy and Morphology |
2Departamento de Botânica, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, CCS, Bloco H, 21.941-590, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 3Institute of Systematic Botany, The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York 10458-5126 USA; 4Núcleo de Pesquisas de Produtos Naturais, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, CCS, Bloco H, 21.941-590, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and 5Departamento de Produtos Naturais e Alimentos, Faculdade de Farmácia, CCS, Bloco A, 21.941-590, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Received for publication October 31, 2000. Accepted for publication June 29, 2001.
| ABSTRACT |
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Key Words: anatomy essential oil Rondeletieae Rubiaceae Rustia secretory cavities Tresanthera
| INTRODUCTION |
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Metcalfe and Chalk (1950, pp. 13461348)
listed 40 families with "sacs or cavities with unspecified contents," 16 families with "cavities with mucilaginous contents," and 14 families with "cavities with tanniferous contents," with the Rubiaceae listed in the first two categories. In a note before these lists, they warn that these "lists have been compiled because of the proven taxonomic value of secretory structures, but it must always be remembered, when using them, that the precise nature of their contents has been accurately determined in only a few plants." Considerable progress has been made since the publication of this milestone work, and the foliar secretory cavities have recently been studied in selected genera of the families Rutaceae, Myrtaceae, Myoporaceae, Fabaceae, Hypericaceae, Anacardiaceae, Asteraceae, Bombacaceae, Olacaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Menispermaceae, Ebenaceae, Myrsinaceae, and Cactaceae (Langenheim, 1967
; Langenheim, Lee, and Martin, 1973
; Fahn, 1979
; Baas, van Oosterhoud, and Scholtes, 1982
; Karrfalt and Tomb, 1983
; Curtis and Lersten, 1986
; Turner, 1986
; Russin et al., 1988
; Roth and Lindorf, 1991
; Jordaan and Kruger, 1992
; Fontelle, Costa, and Machado, 1994; Monteiro et al., 1995
; Poli, Sacchetti, and Bruni, 1995
; Otegui et al., 1998
; Lersten and Beaman, 1998
; Niklas et al., 2000
). Nevertheless, in the second edition of their Anatomy of the Dicotyledons, Metcalfe and Chalk (1983
, pp. 223224; Metcalfe, 1983, pp. 6467) listed only 18 families with mucilage cavities and 24 families that have at least some genera with nonmucilaginous cavities in which the Rubiaceae were included. It is quite astounding that, considering the taxonomic, anatomical, ecological, and economic importance of foliar secretory structures, these features and their content remain so incompletely known.
Within the Rubiaceae, a predominantly tropical family of
650 genera and 13 000 species, only three genera are known to have foliar secretory cavities: the sister taxa Rustia Klotzsch and Tresanthera H. Karst. (tribe Rondeletieae sensu Delprete, 1999
) and the distantly related Heterophyllaea J. D. Hook. (Tourn, 1981
; tribe Spemacoceae sensu Bremer and Manen, 2000
). A comparative study on the anatomy and content of the foliar secretory cavities of Heterophyllaea will be published in the near future (P. G. Delprete et al., unpublished manuscript). Rustia and Tresanthera are also peculiar in having poricidal anthers, opening by two apical pores in Rustia and by a common lateral pore in Tresanthera. Rustia is a genus of 14 species, represented by shrubs 34 m tall to trees up to 15 m tall, ranging from Nicaragua to southern Brazil, and with two main centers of diversity, one in the Andean cloud forests of northwestern South America (Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru), and the other in the Brazilian Atlantic forests in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Tresanthera is a monotypic genus of shrubs and trees 1520 m tall, endemic of the Caribbean coastal forests of Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. These two genera have been recently monographed by Delprete (1999)
.
Secretory cavities present in the leaves of Rustia and Tresanthera have been previously reported by several botanists and variably called "internal druses," "intercellular secretion-containers," "secretory cells," and "characteristic druses" ("inneren drusen," "intercellulare Secretbahälter," "secretführende," and "eingenthümliche Drusen," respectively; cf. Solereder, 1893)
, "pellucid glands" (Steyermark, 1974; Dwyer, 1980), "translucent dots" (Robbrecht, 1988
), and "pellucid dots" (Burger and Taylor, 1993). A brief history on the observation of secretory cavities of these two genera has recently been published by Delprete (1999
: pp. 2425). Although foliar cavities of Rustia and Tresanthera have been reported for more than a century (Karsten, 1858, 1861
; Solereder, 1890, 1893, 1908
; Metcalfe and Chalk, 1950
; Verdcourt, 1958
; Robbrecht, 1988
), no detailed study on the anatomy of these structures and their chemical content has ever been made.
Because of recently developed collecting programs, fresh material of Rustia formosa (Cham. and Schltdl. ex DC.) Klotzsch, the type species of the genus, has become available. Rustia formosa, the species with the widest distribution range of its genus, is a shrub 46 m tall (exceptionally up to 12 m tall) occurring in the gallery forest of the cerrado biome of the Brazilian states of Goiás, Minas Gerais, Distrito Federal, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo; further information about this species can be found in Delprete (1999)
.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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500 m above sea level, in the state of Goiás, Brazil. The plant was a shrub 56 m tall with semi-leathery leaves and white corolla tubes with pink lobes; it was identified by P. G. Delprete, and voucher specimens (Delprete and Rizzo 7060-A) are deposited at the herbarium (UFG) of the Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil.
Anatomical protocol
For the anatomical analysis, mature leaves were fixed in ethanol 70% and dehydrated with ascending alcohol series and embedded in paraffin (Sass, 1951
). Transversal sections
12 µm thick were made with a rotary microtome. Tissues were stained with Astra Blue + Basic Fuchsin (Roeser, 1962
). For the study of the paradermal view of the epidermis, small rectangular areas of epidermis were removed from the medial portion of the leaf blade, preceded by its dissociation following the Jeffrey method (Johansen, 1940
). Determination of stomata per square millimeter was calculated by averaging 30 1-mm square areas of ten leaves of the same individual. Lipidic substances were detected using Sudan III in free-hand sections (Johansen, 1940
). The anatomical photographs were taken with an optical photomicroscope Zeiss Axiolab (Carl Zeiss, Microscopy and Imaging Systems, Thornwood, New York, USA).
Essential oil extraction and analysis
The essential oil from the fresh leaves of this plant was extracted by hydrodistillation in a Clevenger type apparatus for 34 h; this process yielded a colorless oil. The essential oil from Rustia formosa was analyzed by capillary gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography combined with mass spectroscopy technique (GC/MS). The GC analysis was performed in a Varian Star 3400 CX gas chromatograph (Varian, Palo Alto, California, USA), fused capillary column (DB-5; 25 m x 0.2 mm), hydrogen as carrier gas, temperature programming 60°240°C (3°C/min). Retention times (RT) were measured in minutes. The GC/MS analysis was performed using a Hewlett-Packard HP5890 SII gas chromatograph (Agilent, Palo Alto, California, USA) coupled with a VG Autospec mass spectrometer (70 eV), using fused silica capillary column (DB-1; 25 m x 0.20 mm), helium as carrier gas, and temperature programming 60°240°C (3°C/min). Identification of the substances was achieved by comparing the mass spectra with a computer library and by visual comparison with spectra reported in literature (Adams, 1995
). The retention index (RI) of each sample was calculated using data of a homologous series of saturated aliphatic hydrocarbons (C8 to C22) in the same column and conditions as in the GC analysis of the oils.
| RESULTS |
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Mesophyll
The mesophyll is made of chlorophyllous parenchyma differentiated into palisade and spongy parenchyma typical of a dorsiventral leaf blade (Fig. 5). The palisade parenchyma consists of two cellular layers, and the spongy parenchyma is comprised of several layers of thin-walled, irregularly placed and sparsely arranged cells, forming large intercellular spaces (Fig. 5).
Leaf margin
The leaf margin is lightly bent toward the abaxial face (Fig. 6). The epidermis is single layered and covered by a thick cuticle. The cells of the chlorophyllous parenchyma diminish in size toward the margin, and the number of chloroplasts decrease toward the margins.
Secretory cavities
In Rustia formosa, secretory cavities are distributed throughout the whole leaf. In the leaf lamina, cavities occur near the palisade parenchyma (Fig. 5), throughout the lamina to near the margin (Fig. 6), and near the parenchyma of the medial portions. In the petiole, they occur in the cortical region, surrounded by angular collenchyma (Fig. 8), and in the internal region of the cortex near the collateral vascular bundles (Fig. 7). They were not found in the vascular region of the petiole.
Each secretory cavity is a large intercellular space surrounded by epithelial cells, which are responsible for secretion into the cavity (Fig. 9). The histochemical test performed with Sudan III indicated the presence of lipid droplets in the epithelial cells.
Chemical results
Essential oil
The gas chromatogram of Rustia formosa leaf essential oil is shown in Fig. 10, and the identified terpenoid compounds are listed in Table 1. The essential oil from Rustia formosa is a complex mixture of at least 75 components, mostly of sesquiterpenoid composition. The relative percentages of the components in the mixture varied as follows: 31 components were present in a relative concentration that ranged from 0.1 to 0.5%, 32 components showed relative concentrations ranging from 0.5 to 2.0%, and 12 components showed relative concentrations varying from 2.0 to 13.0%, of which
-muurolene (4.18%),
-cadinene (4.49%), ß-caryophyllene (8.09%), germacrene B (12.24%), and curzerenone (12.40%) are the most abundant. Among the identified compounds, 12 were nonoxygenated sesquiterpenes [m/z (mass/charge of a fragment generated at the mass spectra) 204] while six were alcohols, ketones, or oxides.
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| DISCUSSION |
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The secretory cavities ("pellucid dots") are mostly spherical and widespread throughout the leaf, with the exception of the vascular bundles. They are present throughout the blade to near the margin (and are visible when holding the leaf against a light source), usually in the medial area between the palisade and spongy parenchymas. They were also found in the petiole, in the internal portion of the cortex, and in the vicinities of the vascular bundles (but never inside them). The epithelial cells are tangentially flattened and usually organized in two or three layers.
According to Solereder's (1893)
, Metcalfe and Chalk's (1950)
, and Delprete's (1990) hypotheses, it is most likely that the foliar secretory cavities of Rustia (and Tresanthera) are of schizogenous origin. In support of this, Turner (1999)
and Turner, Berry, and Gifford (1998)
showed that most probably the cavities and canals thought to be of lysigenous and schizo-lysigenous origins are instead artifacts of inappropriate sample preparation. More specifically, Turner, Berry, and Gifford (1998
, p. 75) presented "evidence that the lysigenous appearance of Citrus limon glands [often cited as the textbook case of lysigenous cavities] is a fixation artifact caused by osmotic swelling of glandular cells immersed in hypotonic solutions [...] This variation in disruptive swelling creates a false impression that autolysis follows maturation and may account for the reports of lysigeny by some investigators." Although the ontogeny of the leaf cavities of Rustia was not studied, their probable schizogenous origin remains to be proved.
Chemistry of cavity contents
The use of Sudan III to detect the presence of lipid substances also gives a positive reaction with essential oils (Cutter, 1986
; Oliveira and Saito, 1991
). The presence of lipid droplets in the secretory cavities and in the epithelial cells may indicate that the essential oil is produced by the epithelial cells and secreted into the cavities (for explanation on mechanisms of secretion, see Mauseth, 1988
, pp. 141166), since the leaves release a pleasant fragrance only upon crushing.
Phylogenetic and ecological implications
We speculate that the essential oil contained in the secretory cavities of Rustia (and Tresanthera) function as a mechanism of protection against herbivory. The pleasant fragrance (to the human senses) that is liberated upon leaf crushing is due to the essential oils, which may function as a deterrent or as a poison for insect larvae or other potential herbivores (Rosenthal and Janzen, 1979
; Gottlieb and Salatino, 1987
; Rosenthal and Berenbaum, 1991
).
According to phylogenetic analyses based on molecular data, Rustia and Tresanthera (not included in the molecular analysis, but treated as a sister taxon because of its morphological affinities) are shown to be highly advanced taxa (Rova et al., in press
). Therefore, the secretory cavities (and the poricidal anthers) of these genera should be treated as derived features and as synapomorphic characters. Most plant families that produce large quantities of essential oil usually do not produce alkaloids and vice versa (Gottlieb and Salatino, 1987
). This may be explained by the assumption that both alkaloids and essential oils are produced by plants for protection against herbivory; therefore, it is unlikely to find both kinds of substances in the same taxon or in the same organs of the same species (i.e., alkaloids might be present in the bark but not in the leaves, where essential oils are usually stored).
As a second hypothesis, it is possible that these taxa might be one of the few cases where both alkaloids and essential oils are produced. If alkaloids are present in the leaves or in the bark of these genera, these might have evolved a double mechanism of protection against herbivory. Unfortunately, isolation of alkaloids from the leaves and the bark of these two genera has not been attempted; future research testing the presence of alkaloids in the various organs of these and related genera (P. G. Delprete et al., unpublished data) will test these hypotheses.
| FOOTNOTES |
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6 Author for reprint request (phone: 718 817 8819; FAX 718 817 8648; pdelprete{at}nybg.org
). ![]()
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