Preliminary studies in the taxonomy of Danthonia in Canada

Abstract

Representative Canadian herbarium material of Danthonia was studied morphologically and micromorphologically. Characters used by previous authors were reexamined. Among the new characters studied the lodicule patterns were found to be very useful for discrimination. Canonical analyses were performed excluding input of lodicule patterns, but with the incorporation of various other lodicule attributes. As a result, five species are recognized for Canada; a key and a map of distribution are given. An additional canonical analysis with the inclusion of latitude and longitude added as input has shown that the geographical factor is insignificant.