TITLE	Calcium crystals in the leaves of some species of Moraceae
AUTHOR	Chi-Chih Wu Department of Botany, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China Ling-Long Kuo-Huang Department of Botany, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China
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ABSTRACT	The type, morphology, and distribution of calcium oxalate and calcium carbonate crystals in mature leaves of nine species (eight genera) of Moraceae were studied. All the studied species contain calcium crystals. Based on types of crystals, these species can be classified into three groups: (a) species with only calcium oxalate: Artocarpus altilis and Cudrania cochinchinensis; (b) species with only calcium carbonate: Fatoua pilosa and Humulus scandens; and, (c) species with both calcium oxalate and calcium carbonate: Broussonetia papyrifera, Ficus elastica, Ficus virgata, Malaisia scandens, and Morus australis. The calcium oxalate crystals were mainly found as druses or prismatic crystals. Druses were located in the crystal cells of both mesophyll and bundle sheath, but prismatic crystals were found only in cells of the bundle sheath. All calcium carbonate cystoliths were located in the epidermal lithocysts, and the types of lithocysts were related to the number of epidermal layers, i.e. hair-like lithocysts in uniseriate epidermis and papillate lithocysts in multiseriate epidermis.
KEYWORD	Calcium oxalate crystals; Calcium carbonate crystals; Moraceae;
ARTICLE INFO	Botanical Bulletin of Academia Sinica, Volume 38 Number 2 April 1997, page 97-104, 8 pages
PUBLISHER	Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China