The leaf anatomy of the genus Galanthus L. (Amaryllidaceae J. St.-Hil.)

The leaf anatomy of the genus Galanthus is described from transverse sections of the leaf and epidermal preparations, with the objective of identifying systematic information. Eight characters are identified as having the potential to provide data for grouping species and subspecies; six of these characters are reported here for the first time. Some of these characters, alone or in combination with other anatomical data, are useful for looking at the relationships between taxbnomically difficult species. Our results are compared with the classifications of Artjushenko, which are based on anatomical and morphological data.