Article

The taxonomic importance of leaf anatomy in the Poaceae has been highlighted by many authors and applied to a great number of genera belonging to this family. This study provides new information which may help clarity the relationships among the different taxa ofthe genus Anthoxanthum present in the Iberian Peninsula and to evaluate the influence ofthe environment on the anatomical characteristics to analyze their validity for taxonomic purposes. The anatomical characteristics of 110 samples from 22 populations of the five Iberian taxa of Anthoxanthum were analyzed. Of each sample 12 characteristics of the epidermal surface and 10 characteristics of the leaf transverse section were measured and ali information was stored in a database. The similarity among samples was determined using the Phi Coefficient The relationships among samples were summarised in a phenogram carried out using Clustering Methods. The influence of environmental parameters on the anatomical characteristics was determined by a Canonical Correspondence Analysis.