Studies on the Morphological and Dispersing Characters of the Seeds of Keteleeria xerophila

The species Keteleeria xerophila belonging to the family Pinaceae, is endangered and mostly distributed in a very narrow area, Yunnan. At present, the populations of the species are rare. In order to discuss the relationship between the endangering mechanisms and the characteristics of seed morphology and dispersal, the morphological variation and 11 dispersing characteristics of seeds were studied. The results showed that the order of seed variation was: the percentage of weight of seed wing ﹥ the weight of seed ﹥ the total weight of seed ﹥ the weight of seed wing ﹥ the ratio of length and width of seed wing ﹥ the width of seed ﹥ the length of seed wing ﹥ the length of seed ﹥ the percentage of length of seed wing ﹥ the width of seed wing ﹥ the total length of seed. The relation between several morphological characters of seeds was extremely significant positive correlation. The hovering time was comprehensively influenced by the various characters of seeds and has an extremely significant negative correlation with the total weight of seed, the weight of seed and the weight of seed wing, the correlation coefficient was -0641, -0637 and -0441, respectively. The hovering time has an extremely significant positive correlation with the percentage of weight of seed wing, and the correlation coefficient was 0577. The seed morphology of Kxerophila was relatively stable and adapted to disperse for a long distance, but the natural regeneration ability of population was weak, which was one of the important reasons for being endangered.