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Annals of Botany 64: 697-706, 1989
© 1989 Annals of Botany Company

RESEARCH-ARTICLE

A Comparison of the Chemical Composition of Injured Leaves in Contrast to Uninjured Leaves of Victoria amazonica (Nymphaeaceae)

U. M. COWGILL*, and G. T. PRANCE{dagger}

* P.O. Box 2047, Midland, Michigan 48641, USA
{dagger} Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK

For correspondence.

Accepted: 19 July 1989   

The object of this paper is to describe chemical and mineralogical changes in Victoria leaves that have sustained insect damage.

Of 44 elements detected in various plant parts of Victoria amazonica (Poeppig) J. de C. Sowerby (V. regia auctt) Nymphaeaceae, only 15 elements showed statistically significant differences in concentration between insect-damaged leaves and whole (undamaged) leaves of the same plants. Two different types of insect damage were noted: one was clearly recent, while the other was clearly older, probably not differing in time more than three weeks. Mg, Ca, Al, Si, S, Fe, Mn, Li and Ce were significantly more concentrated in the damaged leaf sections than in undamaged leaves of the mature plants with unopened buds. In the case of preflowering plants, Na, Mg, Ca, Al, Si, S, Cl, Fe and Mn were more prevalent in the damaged tissue than in the unattacked leaves of the same plants. In the former case, Na, K, Cl and P are rapidly lost when damage occurs, while plants that have had a chance to recover from the damage, as in the case of the preflowering plant leaves, begin to make up the difference in elemental concentration between the damaged and undamaged leaves.

Mineralogical investigation showed that the amount of calcite (CaCO3), the calcium oxalates weddellite and whewellite, and the siliceous minerals - low-form cristobalite opal, low-form tridymite opal and quartz-was higher in the recently injured leaves than in those that had been injured some time previously or than in the uninjured leaves. It is hypothesized that the increased precipitation of minerals resulting from injury is part of the plants' defence mechanism against further attack by insects or animals.

Insect injury, Victoria, leaves, inorganic composition, mineralogy


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