Epidermal anatomic characterization of spontaneous plants belonging to Poaceae, Cistaceae and Boraginaceae families in Algerian northern sahara

Abstract

Microscopic examination of the epidermis of wild plants contained in the feces of the dromedary and ruminants is one of the methods for studying the animal diet. This work is a step to elaborate a reference catalog of epidermis to determinate the diet of camel and ruminants in the Saharan rang land situated in Algerian northern Sahara. In this paper, we described the most important epidermal anatomical characteristics of spontaneous perennial plants and ephemeral (08 species and 03families) grazed on Saharan rang land, by using an binocular light microscope. From the results, we propose an identification key to these 08 species from their epidermal characters.