Morphoanatomical study of some species from fabaceae family in Iraq

The current study dealt with comparative morphological and anatomical study of different species of Leguminosae family in Iraq. The study included seven species : Albizia lebbeck Benth. , Alhagi maurorum Medik. , Cassia sopheral Roxb. , Leucaena leucocephala Lam. , Medicago sativa Boiss., Trifolium repens Boiss, Vicia tenuifolia Roth. .The morpho-anatomical study is very important to distinguish between them. Samples of the study were collected from different areas in Iraq during flowering period between 2021-2022. In the present research, cuticular and epidermal anatomical features were described, in addition to the anatomical features of stems, leaves and petiole. Results showed that some of the morphological and anatomical characters of studied parts have good taxonomic value to distinguish between above studied species. Epidermis characters have taxonomic significance , espeically the nature of anticilinal walls and types of stomatal complexes , while dimensions of stem cells and the rates of the length of stomata were limited taxonomic importance . The general shapes of cross – sections of stem showed great taxonomic significance for isolation species , as well as cortex thickness .