Colleter

• Title

  Colleter

• Definition

  In Lecythidaceae, a multicellular, unbranched glandlike structure found along leaf blade margins. Up to the present only Cariniana estrellensis has been shown to have colleters.

• Notes

  Colleters were first described as such by E. A. Sousa Paiva (2012) in Cariniana estrellensis. In this species they are multicellular trichome-like structures located along the leaf blade margins in young leaves. These colleters produce mucilage which covers both leaf blade surfaces. Paiva hypotheses that the mucilage protects the leaves from high solar radiation and dry conditions, something that is important because the vascular tissue needed to deliver water to the leaves that have not yet fully developed. In this species, the colleters produced mucilage in leaves only 5% of the size of fully expanded leaves. The number of collecters ranges from five to 10 per centimeter which corresponds to 120 to 200 colleters per normal-sized leaf. The colleters fall before the leaves are fully expanded, leaving scars where they once were (Paiva, 2012). Marginal leaf blade scars have previously been identified as trichome scars but this needs to be reconsidered based on what is now known about the presence of colleters in C. estrellensis.

• *For more educational content, please visit The Hand Lens and explore our herbarium collections and the stories they tell.