Morphological Variability of Flowers of Antennaria dioica (L.) Gaertn.: Circumstantial Evidence for the Origin of Taxon Dioecy from Hermaphroditism through Gynodiecy

Abstract

Based on the literature, we assumed the presence of several morphological forms of flowers of the dioecy species Antennaria dioica (L.) Gaertn. We investigated 6000 flowers from three sites in Europe. As a result of this study, we allocated three morphological types of flowers: female, male, and hermaphroditic (2.5% sample). Variability of the degree of reduction of different organs, especially in the case of male flowers, was detected.