Morphometric analysis of nectaries and their potential use in the taxonomy of the Jovibarba heuffelii complex (Crassulaceae)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to quantify the morphological variation of nectaries among 14 populations of Jovibarba heuffelii based on multivariate statistics, and to establish whether nectaries possess taxonomic significance for differentiating taxa within the J. heuffelii complex. To this end, we measured the width of the nectary, its height, the angle between the carpels and nectary, the shape of the nectary and the distance between nectaries were measured and analyzed. Descriptive statistics, the Tukey HSD (honest significant difference) of homogenous groups for the unequal N post-hoc test, canonical discriminant analysis (CDA) and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) were used. Morphometric analysis showed that the quantitative and semiquantitative characteristics of nectaries in the J. heuffelii complex are highly morphologically variable, both within and between populations, and that they are unreliable as taxonomic characters for taxon differentiation within the J. heuffelii complex.