ANATOMICAL DIVERSITY OF ROOTS OF SANSEVIERIA SUFFRUTICOSSA BROWN

The paper describes for the first time the morphology and anatomy of aerial and terrestrial roots of Sansevieria suffruticossa of family Liliaceae of monocots. Both terrestrial and aerial roots of Sansevieria suffruticossa are woody, brown in colour and positively geotropic in nature. The dimorphic roots of Sansevieria suffruticossa present some peculiar features like the presence of polyarch and exach radial vascular bundles. These vascular bundles range from 16 to 36 in aerial roots and 12 to 28 in terrestrial roots. In addition to the usual ring of radial vascular bundles, the aerial and terrestrial roots also show the presence of numerous Scattered vascular bundles of various type e.g. collateral, concentric, patches of vascular strands like phloem and xylem in the central part of the root. The various vascular bundles collateral, concentric, patches of xylem and phoem are surrounded by the massive cells of sclerenchyma. The scattered vascular bundles range from 1 to 11 in aerial roots and 2 to 26 in terrestrial roots. The cortex and pith are wide as in the other monocot roots.