Embryological Studies on Facultative Apomixis in Apluda mutica (Gramineae)

摘要

A cytological study on Apluda mutica L. revealed that this species was a facultative apomict with 60.74% of apomictic embryo sac formation. Its sexual reproduction exhibited the characteristics of polygonum-type embryo sac formation. After the 3 megaspores at the micropylar end had degenerated, leaving only the chalazal megaspore in the nucellus, a nucellar cell adjacent to the megaspore differentiated into an aposporous initial, which later developed into a panicum-type embryo sac. It was an aposporous 4-nucleate embryo sac without chromosome reduction and composed of an egg, a single synergid and a central cell with 2 polar nuclei. The chalazal megaspore degenerated before the onset of the division in the aposporous initial cell.