2. MATERIAL AND METHODS
The studied Artemisia taxa were collected from various phytogeographical
areas of Turkey by Dr. Murat KÜRŞAT and Dr. Şemsettin CİVELEK, and
stored in Fırat University. The studied taxa and their locations were
presented in Table 1.
Macro-morphological structures of the achenes including color, shape,
dimension and carpopodium diameter were studied with 100 achenes of 10
specimens per taxa utilizing a Leica EZ4 binocular microscope with a HD
camera (Figure 1 and Table 2).
Micro-morphological features of the achenes containing surface
ornamentation, anticlinal and periclinal cell walls, epidermal cells and
presence of secondary structures were examined with a Scanning Electron
Microscope (Figure 2, Table 3). Initially, achenes were located on the
stubb with a carbon tape or silver agar and covered with gold-palladium,
then detected with a TESCAN MAIA3 XMU SEM (Karaismailoğlu, 2015).
EDS (Oxford Instruments, INCA ENERGY) analyzes were performed with a
TESCAN MAIA3 XMU SEM. EDS analyzes were carried out by selecting the
same spot on the sample surface at 80 sec under 30 µm aperture size,
with 20 kV acceleration voltage, 8 mm operating distance, high current
and processing time conditions. All analyzes were performed at three
different points, and the average percentage of the quantitative values
obtained were used (Table 4).
The grouping of the examined taxa was performed with using the
clustering analysis method (UPGMA) in MultiVariate Statistical Package
(MVSP) according to the 44 characters in Tables 2-3 (Figure 4). The
characteristics in statistical analysis were used achene color:
brown-dark brown (1), straw yellowish-light brown (2), light brown-brown
(3), yellowish-light brown-brown (4), dark brown (5), dark
brown-blackish brown (6); achene figure: fusiform-oblong (7), oblong
(8), oblong-ovate (9), ovate (10); achene dimension: length (11), width
(12), length/width (13); achene surface structures: bare, deeply
longitudinally striate (14), bare, finely longitudinally striate (15),
rough, deeply longitudinally striate (16); carpopodium diameter (17);
achene ornamentation type: irregularly sulcate (18), regularly sulcate
(19), ruminate (20), sulcate-scalariform (21), rugose (22), favulariate
(23), slightly sulcate (24), alveolate (25), tuberculate (26),
reticulate (27); anticlinal cell wall: unclear (28), raised (29), sunken
(30); periclinal cell wall: unclear (31), concave (32), convex (33),
flat (34); epidermal cell structure: unclear (35), polygonal (36),
alveolar (37), rectangular (38), arched-rectangular (39); presence of
secondary structures: irregular lines (40), irregular epicuticular
wrinkles (41), irregular epicuticular protrusions (42), epicuticular
wrinkles (43), dome-shaped protrusion (44). The dissimilarity matrix of
the studied taxa was formed with MVSP (Kovach 2007) (Table 5). A
dendrogram was designed. Moreover, the cophenetic correlation
coefficient was calculated to clarify the relative between the
dendrogram and dissimilarity matrix (Table 5 and Figure 4).