Relationships between leaf traits and morphological attributes in one-year bareroot Fraxinus angustifolia Vahl. seedlings

Abstract

Leaf traits were investigated as morphological attributes for quality estimation of one-year-old bareroot seedlings of Fraxinus angustifolia Vahl. Leaf traits (number of simple – NSL and compound leaves – NCL, leaf average – ALA and total area – TLA and leaf area ratio – LAR) show similar relations to morphological attributes, the strongest to shoot growth (height – HT, root collar diameter – DIA and shoot dry weight – SDW). Increases of seedling morphological attributes are strongly related to increases of ALA. Given to strong positive correlations with other morphological attributes, ALA (R = 0.68-0.88) and TLA (R = 0.46-0.92) are suitable for seedlings quality testing. TLA explained a larger proportion of the variation of SDW (R2 = 0.85) and ALA explained a large proportion of the variation of DIA (R2 = 0.81). Leaf traits can be considered as valuable morphological attributes of seedling quality, in addition to strong correlation with other morphological attributes.

Keywords

• total leaf area, average leaf area, seedlings quality, narrowleaved ash