Anatomía de hoja y fruto de Cupania Vernalis (Sapindaceae) una especie de importancia en la frugivoría

GUILLERMO M. SUÁREZ, RUFFINO ANA, ARIAS, MARTA & ALBORNOZ PATRICIA

Tafí del Valle, Tucumán, Argentina

Jornada; XVII Jornadas Científicas de la Asociación de Biología de Tucumán; 2000

Asociación de Biología de Tucumán

Cupania vernalis Cambess, vulgar name “ramo”, it is a disarmed tree of 6-15 meters tall, it has a persistent foliage which is distinguished because it has big dark purple seeds, orange cupola-like pulpy aril with high food-value. A morphoanatomic work of fruit and anatomic revision of leaf were made. Fresh material fixed in formol, alcohol and water. Conventional anatomic techniques were applied. Tint was made with fast-green safranin. In order to identify lipid, starch and saponin, histoquimic tests were carried out. In addition to the folial characteristic already verify by others autores, we state two kind of stomata: actinocitic and anomocitic, crystals of calciumoxalate in prism and geode shape relate to the vascular system, hypoderm was not observed. The fruit is a pubescent, oval triangle, trilocular capsule, one seed for each loculus. Histoquimic test was positive for saponin and starch in leaf and seed, and in seed and aril respectively; and it was negative for lipid. We conclude that all of this results has an important diagnostic value.