PALYNOLOGICAL STUDIES OF RAUVOLFIA VOMITORIA AFZEL COLLECTED FROM UNICAL AND CRUTECH

The study was carried out to investigate the effect of geographical locations on pollen characters and how it can hamess in solving taxonomic issues. Pollen study has contributed a great deal in the fieldof Plant Taxonomy even though the process seems expensive and rigorous.The present study employed the Erdtman (1960) as adopted by Moore et al. (1991) for pollen analysis followed by microphotography of the pollen characters.Results of the study showed that Rauvolfia vomitoria analyzed exhibit insignificant variations at p>0.05 in Polar/Equatorial ratio (P/E) and pollen size,while still maintaining close resemblance with its qualitative characters. Findings of the study concluded that thet geographic location has not influence on the palynological parameters investigated on RaulvoIfia vomitoria, and that the observed similar characteristics and close affinity uphold the importance of palynological characters which can be used in solving taxonomic related problems. The study therefore,call for more concerted effort in studying pollen morphology of extant plant species across varied geographic locations which will be beneficial in areas such as archaeology,ecology,taxonomy,environmental reconstruction etc where and when other means of research seems expensive or not readily available.