%0 Journal Article %A LI Peng %A ZHANG Wei %A ZHENG Gui-Ling %T Leaf Wax Components and Surface Structure of Tillandsia Species %D 2016 %R 10.7525/j.issn.1673-5102.2016.05.009 %J Bulletin of Botanical Research %P 692-696 %V 36 %N 5 %X Tillandsia is a kind of special plant which absorbs water and nutrients directly from the air through leaves. In order to investigate the function of the leave, five Tillandsia species were chose to analyze their leave surface structures with scanning electron microscope(SEM) and wax components with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry technology(GC-MS). The white, waxy, sunflower-shaped trichomes covered the leaf surface in all species. The foliar trichomes were made up of disc cells, ring cells and wing cells. The main wax components contained low-polarity constituents, including hydrocarbons, alcohols, ketones and esters, which may reduce the water loss effectively. In addition, the total contents of wax components among five Tillandsia species were different with the order of Tillandsia ionantha >Tillandsia brachycaulos >Tillandsia velutina >Tillandsia medusa >Tillandsia streptophylla. By the correlation analysis, the total contents of wax components were positively correlated with the total leave area of foliar trichomes, indicating that those wax components were distributed mainly on the foliar trichomes. %U https://bbr.nefu.edu.cn/EN/10.7525/j.issn.1673-5102.2016.05.009