Biosystematic Study of Cyperaceae Species: Fimbristylis bisumbellata, Kyllinga brevifolia, Pycreus flavidus, Pycreus sanguinolentus

Abstract

Cyperaceae commonly known as sedges is the third largest family of monocots and tenth largest family of angiosperms comprsing of approximately 5500 species distributed in 109 genera. The distribution of Cyperaceae range from wetlands, streams, marshes, bogs to grasslands and savannahs. The plants are mainly identified as tenacious weeds, however they may serve other ecological, economic and medicinal purposes. The members of this family are characterized as perennial herbs with triangular stem and terminal inflorescence with bracts. These are mostly terrestial plants that are usually grasslike or herbs. The taxonomy of this family is complex due to complex morphology and inconspicous inflorescence. The present study focusses on the biosystematic study of four Cyperaceae species; Fimbristylis bisumbellata, Kyllinga brevifolia, Pycreus flavidus and P. sanguinolentus. These species were collected from two areas of Pakistan. The study involves the analysis of morphological characters such as inflorescence, glume, nut, rachis and other were observed through steremicroscope. The micromorphological analysis of the species was carried out through scanning electron microscopy. The study also involved the preparation and submission of herbarium specimen. The molecular anlysis of the species was carried out by amplification of four barcoding markers genes; ITS, ETS, rbcL and matK. The sequences were submitted to NCBI database and the accession numbers were obtained. The phylogenetic analysis of the sequence data was carried out using Geneious. The Bayesian, maximum likelihood and neighbour joining trees were constructed in this program. The trees suggested close relationship between the species under study with smilar taxa. The present study provides a detailed account of morphological and micromorphological characters and molecular aspects of the four species and will be helpful for future studies