Systematics Of Schisandraceae

Some new characters are found based much evidence on gross-morphology, leaf epidermic anatomy, woods anatomy, cytology and cladistic analysis. The new infrageneric systems of Kadsura and Schisandra are revised and the relationships between the two genera and related groups are proposed. The main results are summarized as follows:1. Gross-morphological analysisOn basis of examination of herbarium specimens and field observations, the variation pattern of all the major gross-morphological characters in Schisandraceae and related groups were analyzed. Their taxonomic significance was re-evaluated. The results show that the habits of plants, lateral branches angled or winged or not, pubescence, the features of androecium, fruits and seeds are important for the delimitation of species. However, leaves shapes and size, density of hair, tepals color etc. are greatly variable within a species and of little significance in specific classification.2. Anatomy of leaf epidermisLeaf epidermis of two hundred and forty-three samples representing eleven species of Kadsura Kaempf. ex Juss., ten species of Schisandra Michaux. and two species of Illicium Linn. were investigated with the light microscope (LM) and scanning electronic microscope(SEM). Many characters of leaf epidermis, such as patterns of epidermal cells, type of stomata, shape of guard cell pairs, cuticular ornamentation and hair on epidermis etc. are usually constant within species and thus make good characters for studying the relationship between and within genera.