Taxonomic assessment of family Salicaceae in Egypt

The family Salicaceae in Egypt is represented by three wild species namely; Salix tetrasperma Roxb. Salix safsaf Trautv. (latter treated as Salix mucronata Thunb.) and Populus euphratica Oliv. Salix roots prefer growing in the saturated groundwater zone and will rapidly elongate to maintain contact with free water. The present study showed that S. tetrasperma was collected only from Minya to Alexandria a habitat characterized by low-temperature absent from Upper Egypt where high-temperature. the occurrence of S. tetrasperma and both male and female S. mucronata in Fayium may be attributed to the presence of low elevation from the water surface. Populus euphratica collected during this study was growing at high temperatures and humidity. The results of the present study showed that the two studied Salix species can be distinguished from each other by several pollen characters. S. tetrasperma has a small pollen grain and a wide exine lumen with granulate lumen sculpture. While S. mucronata has shorter. The developed zymograms showed that Esterase and peroxidase revealed the presence of sex – differential bands.