PRELIMINARY MICROMORPHOLOGICAL DATA ON SOME ROMULEA MARATTI TAXA

Among the small sized Iridaceae present in Italy, the genus Romulea Maratti, which is widespread mainly in South Africa (Goldblat 2001;Manning, Goldblatt, Snijman, 2002), Medit., and Europe, is clearly distinguished by its brief flowering period, its ephemeral flowers and the high variability of the color, size and general shape of the individuals. These prerogatives certainly have not facilitated the biosystematic and systematic studies. Moreover, contrasting data emerge from the literature between the morphologic information obtained from observations of herbarium specimens and that from living plants in the field. Consequently, the biosystematic data are also inadequate and contrasting. Therefore, in addition to our biosystematic investigation for the Italian taxa, we have begun a macro- and micromorphologic study comparing material from herbaria with that from the field. We report here some preliminary data concerning the micromorphology of certain species of Romulea (R. bulbocodium (L.) Sebast. & Mauri, R. ramiflora Ten., R. columnae Sebast. & Mauri, R. rolli Parl.), from some Italian populations in order to present a contribution to the current systematic view which, according to our preliminary data, appears redundant, confused and misleading at specific and subspecific level.