2. Material and Methods
2.1 Studied species
Di. persica is an annual endemic species that distributed
widely in southern parts of Iran (Rechinger 1987, Mozaffarian 2007). The
height of the plant reaches up to 15-75 cm. The stem is foliate, simple
or branched, fairly furrowed and covered by reflexed hairs. The
dimension of basal leaves is 7-20×1.5-15 cm with oblong or ovate shape,
having 3-6 pair leaflets, its terminal leaf segments is ovate to oblong
with dentate to pinnate margin. Bracts are 5 to 8, reaching up to 6-12
mm length. Rays are 5 to 19, reaching up to 3 to 20 mm. Central umbellet
is club-shaped with blackish purple organ. Central flower of each
umbellet is perfect, fertile, sessile and lacking calyx, those two
peripheral rings are staminate, sterile, thickened and having 2 to 3
calyx teeth at fruiting time. Petals are usually white and rarely
diluted red, those of peripheral flowers are strongly bilobate. All
umbellets are homogenous that look like a cage “lantern-shaped”.
Fruits are not emerged within receptacle (Fig. 1) (Rechinger 1987,
Mozaffarian 2007).
In February 2018, the inflorescence and floral buds were collected from
Ab-e Garm Genu, north Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province, south Iran
(27°27’01.8”N; 56°18’37.8”E, 222m) (Fig. 2). The voucher specimen
deposited in the herbarium of ********* (***, 109383 ****). In the
present study, only terminal buds (n=35 individuals) at different
developmental stages were collected. The specimens, then, immediately,
conserved in plastic bottles containing ethanol 70%. In the lab, they
dissected under Binocular (10×2.5-3.5), Olympus VMZ, Japan. The buds
were dehydrated using graded ethanol-acetone series through 80%, 90%
and absolute alcohol, then 1:1 ethanol-acetone and finally 100%
acetone, each time takes about 30 minutes. The probes dried in ARMIN TEB
critical-pointer, Iran. The specimens mounted on aluminum stubs and then
gold coated using gold-coater Nanostructured Coating Co., Iran. Finally,
the probes studied under SEM (scanning electron microscopy) Vega3,
Tescan, the common product of Czech, Austria and Germany. All stages
conducted according to the manufacture’s protocol.