Morphological characterization in interspecies of Bauhinia species

An experiment was conducted to characterize the variability in morphology as well as foliar epidermal micromorphology of five species of Bauhinia, belonging to family Fabaceae to determine the suitability for interspecies taxonomic delimitation and identification. Generally, these species are perennial shrub and trees with apparent differences in diagnostic features and have recorded differences in their growth habit, branching pattern, leaf shape, size, petiole size and veination pattern. The tree habit was observed from drooping small tree to erect bushy tree, whereas veination pattern was actinodramous in B. racemosa, B. tomentosa and B. malabarica, and it was campylodromous in B. blakeana and B. purpurea. Mostly, epidermal cells in all species were polygonal with straight walls excluding B. tomentosa L. which had an undulating outline. The stomata types were mainly anisocytic, anomocytic and paracytic. Among five species, B. blakeana L. was hypostomatic with anisocytic and paracytic stomata. Among different species, frequency of stomata differed markedly, were noticed with highest frequency in B. malabarica L. (30/mm²), followed by B. blakeana (24/mm²) and it was lowest in B. tomentosa L. (13/mm²), followed by B. racemosa (14/mm²). All the species had trichomes which were either unicellular or multicellular or both the types, but B. malabarica had notable unicellular hooked trichome. The highest trichome index (20%) was observed in B. tomentosa, followed by B. malabarica. However, it was recorded lowest in B. purpurea (0.51%), followed by B. racemosa.