Morphological and anatomical characteristics of the laminas of the tufts of alfa (Stipa tenacissima L.) of different populations of Kasserine region in Tunisia

Abstract

The alfa (Stipa tenacissima L.) it’s a long- lived species which develops in a very wide climatic range. It has a great economic-social importance. Ecologically, it takes part in the maintenance of the balance of the local ecosystem and in fight against the desertification in the arid regions and presaharien. Economically, it constitutes a primary material for the manufacturing of the paper pulp for the Cellulose Factory in Tunisia. Our study was interested in the determination of the morphological characteristics of the laminas of the tufts of alfa (Stipa tenacissima L.) of different populations of Kasserine region: This study is based on the measure of length and the thickness and in addition to determinate the anatomical characteristics of the laminas which consists in developing the quality of alfa by determining the rate of the Dryness and the cellulose content for the summer period. Our results showed that the recumbent of El Guira presents the most important length of the laminas (0.46m), and there cumbent of Oum lagssab has the highest thickness (1.45mm). The chemical analysis of the leaves of alfa showed that: cellulose content is higher at the population of Oum lagssab (30.6%) and Zelfan (30.33%) during the active period (autumn) whereas it is important at the population of Guira (36.6%) for the latent period (summer). The rate of Dryness of the leaves of is higher in autumn for the population of Zelfan (70.10%) on the other hand is maximum at the population of Oum lagssab (74.04%) in the summer.