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Abstract Detail


Developmental and Structural Section

Thadeo, Marcela [1], Vasco Gutierrez, Alejandra [2], Stevenson, Dennis [3], C. Daly, Douglas [4].

An efficient procedure for preparing permanent mounts of cleared leaves.

Leaves provide a wealth of characters useful for describing, identifying, and classifying plants,codified and illustrated in a recently published manual of leaf architecture. Moreover, in many groups, leaf morphology can provide phylogenetically informative characters at different taxonomic levels. Clearing (removing pigments) and staining leaves reveals many of these useful leaf characters, principally venation patterns at multiple magnifications but also including three-dimensional aspects of cell size, shape, arrangement, and presence of secretory structures. Clearing can be used on leaves removed from herbarium sheets or on fresh or liquid-preserved material. There is a good deal of literature on clearing leaves, but references for mounting leaves are poor. Moreover, examination of numerous archived mounts revealed that with age many display problems with discoloration, separation and/or entry of bubbles. Here we briefly describe one successful method for clearing and go into more detail on a technique for mounting cleared leaves in a polyester resin called Caroplastic. One immense advantage of this technique is that it cuts drying time to one day, compared to three weeks or more for mounting media such as Canada balsam, Euparal and Permount. In addition to shortening the time needed for preparation of samples, this technique produces specimens with exceptional clarity and reproducibility for photographic work and yields archival-quality samples that can and should be added to permanent and accessible repositories such as the U.S. National Cleared Leaf Collection.

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1 - The New York Botanical Garden, Science, 200th Street And Southern Blvd, Floor 2, Bronx, New York City, NY, 10458, USA
2 - New York Botanical Garden, 200th Street And Southern Blvd, Bronx, NY, 10458, USA
3 - THE NY BOTANICAL GARDEN, 2900 SOUTHERN BLVD, BRONX, NY, 10458-5126, USA, 718/817-8632
4 - The New York Botanical Garden, Science, 200th Street And Southern Blvd, Bronx, NY, 10458, USA

Keywords:
Leaf Morphology
technique
cleared leaves
cleared leaf collection
Caroplastic.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 40
Location: Union D/Hyatt
Date: Tuesday, July 10th, 2012
Time: 4:15 PM
Number: 40011
Abstract ID:165


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