MORFOMETRIA DE FRUTOS E SEMENTES DE MIMOSA Caesalpiniifolia Benth. (FABACEAE)

Abstract

The knowledge about the morphometric characteristics of fruits and seeds of native species from the Caatinga biome is still incipient, despite the importance of these characteristics for species differentiation and standardization of seed lots, enabling the production of uniform seedlings. The aim of this study was to morphometrically describe fruits and seeds of Mimosa Caesalpiniifolia Benth, at the final stage of maturation. The work was conducted at the Center for Human and Agricultural Sciences of the State University of Paraíba (UEPB), Catolé do Rocha-PB. The fruits were collected from parent trees in areas of natural occurrence of the species at UEPB, Campus IV. For morphometric description, a random sample of 100 fruits and 100 seeds was used. Sabiá (Mimosa caesalpiniifolia Benth) belongs to the Fabaceae family, Mimosoideae subfamily; the fruit is a dry indehiscent articulated legume consisting of a sequence of rectangular or square unisexual craspedias, stipitate, plano-compressed, straight, with thickened margins, straight or slightly sinuous, opaque brown in color. The seeds are small, disc-shaped, smooth, hard, light, light brown in color with an average length of 5.44 mm; width of 4.33 mm; thickness of 1.76 mm and average weight of 0.029 g. The fruit weight showed a positively skewed distribution. The length, thickness, and weight of the seeds have leptokurtic distribution (K>0), while the width has platykurtic distribution (K<0). The fruits and seeds of Sabiá, Mimosa Caesalpiniifolia Benth., exhibit homogeneity for the evaluated morphometric characteristics, except for the weights of the fruits and seeds.