XVI International Botanical Congess

Pollen research has been carried out on 81 Detarioid genera (253 species) to define informative characters for taxonomic study and cladistic analysis. There is a wide variety of pollen morphological structures in the tribe, however the presence of intermediate forms, for example in surface ornamentation, prevents some from being informative as characters. Ultrastructure does, however, provide an important source of taxonomic and systematic information. Three examples are given: 1) variation in the structure of striae, 2) the presence or absence of a foot layer, and 3) the presence or absence of a layer of infratectal granules. These differences can be used to distinguish between taxa with similar surface pattens.