BIOMETRICAL OBSERVATIONS ON ACER TATARICUM L.(ACERACEAE) LEAVES
BERCU RODICA Department of Biology, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, "Ovidius" University, Student Street Mamaia Bvd. 124 No., 900527 Constantza, Romania e-mail: rodicabercu@yahoo.com
The leaf, as a vegetative organ of a plant, may be defined not only by morphological and anatomical features but also by morphometrical and mathematyical criterions, which is not an easy task allowing for their polymorphism, that is why we introduced this method also for the spontaneous plants leaves. We stopped on Acer tataricum L. (spontaneous species) leaves. The morphological observations and morphometrical measurements were performed on 40 mature leaves including linear measurements the (length leaf, the width leaf, the height of the maximum width; the apex length, the apex width; the lobe length, the incision deepness; length of petiole); the percentage ratio (the length-width ratio; the acuminate ratio, the oval ratio; the apex finesse, the relative sinus deepness). It had been calculated the angular measurements as well: the apical angle, the emergent angle of the secondary veins with primaries, emergent angle of the tertiary veins, the emergent angle between the primary lateral veins and other measurements such as:, the number of secondary veins/2), the teeth/cm and the leaf surface (cm^2). The biometric measurements made on 40 leaves of the species considered, were the basis of mathematical calculation of average values of the studied species. Biometric observations contributed to a more complete morphological description of this species leaves.