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Article: Orbicules in angiosperms: morphology, function, distribution, and relation with tapetum types.
- Article from:
- The Botanical Review
- Article date:
- July 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 New York Botanical Garden. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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II. Introduction
Orbicules, or Ubisch bodies, were discovered more than a century ago by Rosanoff(1865). Up to now these minute structures, covering the inner surface of most secretory tapeta, remained enigmatic and therefore highly attractive to botanists concerned with anther structure, pollen development, and sporopollenin synthesis.
In a recent overview Pacini and Franchi (1993) listed 33 species from 22 angiosperm families with secretory tapetum and orbicules (references from 1971 to 1993). From the early days of orbicule research two other lists of taxa with presence/absence of orbicules were published. Von Ubisch (1927) investigated 20 taxa from ...