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Euryodendron excelsum is a rare and endangered evergreen tree in South China. We conducted two experimental translocations (augmentation and conservation introduction) on this species and assessed morphological, anatomical and physiological traits of leaves after translocation. The introduction plants showed smaller specific leaf area, less developed palisade tissues, smaller palisade/spongy tissue ratio, stomata density and anthocyanin content, lower values of maximal quantum yield of PSII photochemistry, photochemical quenching coefficient, net photosynthetic rate, light-saturated net photosynthetic rate, light-saturation point, but higher light-compensation point. These differences in traits help explain why augmented plants grew faster than introduced plants. We found that E. excelsum can adapt to wide ranges of light intensity and water availability, including conditions encountered at the introduction site. Our findings suggest that some endemic and endangered plants with narrow distribution may adapt to different habitat conditions by rapidly altering their morphological, anatomical, and physiological traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree peony is a famous ornamental plant in the world. However, little is known about the leaf color mutants in tree peony. The present study monitored the physiological and photosynthetic properties of a yellow leaf mutant (yl1) in tree peony. The results showed that the yl1 mutant had lower pigment contents, but increased chlorophyll (Chl) a/b and carotenoids to Chl ratio. Microstructure and ultrastructure analysis showed that the yl1 mutant had smaller chloroplasts, few thylakoid stacks, and a few stroma thylakoid membranes remained along with clusters of osmiophilic granules, which might result from inhibition at the reactions from coproporphyrinogen III to protoporphyrin IX. The yl1 mutant had lower leaf net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, and stomata limitation value, but higher intercellular CO2 concentration. Analysis of simple sequence repeat markers indicated that four pairs of primers could obtain different bands in the genome of the yl1 mutant compared to the wild type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]