Page 7 - Bulletin of the Cupressuss Conservation Project vol04_nr1 2015

Podocarpus pollen grains are quite variable especially concerning the overall length, size, shape
and sculpturing of the corpus and the width of the leptoma. Compared to pollen grains of other taxa
among the subclade Australis the pollen of Podocarpus gnidioides with an overall length of 45 µm
(average), a corpus length of 23 µm (average) and a leptoma 10.5 µm (average) in width are
significantly smaller. Only the pollen grains of the New Zealand species Podocarpus acutifolius are
quite similar to Podocarpus gnidioides in their dimensions (overall length 54 µm, corpus length
26 µm; width of the leptoma 13 µm) (POCKNALL 1981). The feature of a strongly rugulate
sculpturing of the corpus is quite common among the taxa of subclade Australis, e.g. the New
Zealand species Podocarpus acutifolius, Podocarpus hallii and Podocarpus totara (POCKNALL
1981). However this feature is also developed in not closely related Podocarpus-species such as the
south American Podocarpus nubigena and Podocarpus parlatorei (DEL FUEYO 1996). Also the
perforations in the surface of the sacci are not a specific feature of Podocarpus gnidioides or
exclusively developed among taxa of the subclade Australis. Such perforations are also developed
in other not closely related taxa as e.g. Podocarpus neriifolius, Podocarpus gracilior or Podocarpus
macrophyllus (e.g. VASIL & ALDRICH 1970; TIWARI et al. 2012). Thus, the pollen of Podocarpus
gnidioides does not show features that are exclusively developed in this taxon.

5 Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Mr. MICHAEL LAUMANN and Mrs. LAURETTA NEJEDLI (Electron Microscopy
Center, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Germany) for technical support (SEM and
paraffin technique). Furthermore we want to thank D. MАЕRKI and M.P. FRANKIS for helpful
discussions of the manuscript and Mr. TIM WATERS for providing additional photos of Podocarpus
gnidioides in its natural habitat illustrated in figure 6.

6 References

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