中国现代块根块茎类植物淀粉粒形态分析

Morphological analysis of modern starch grains of underground storage orangs in China

现代淀粉粒形态数据是鉴定古代淀粉粒的基础。为完善块根块茎植物形态数据库及建立相关鉴定标准，我们采集了17科33属52种现代块根块茎类植物样品进行淀粉粒形态对比和分析。实验结果显示，块根块茎类植物淀粉粒形态多样，在平面上呈现多边形、半圆形、椭圆形、三角形；在三维空间里呈现碎球形、球形、椭球形、钟形等多种形态；黄独（Dioscorea bulbifera）、地涌金莲（Musella lasiocarpa）等具有特殊形态特征的植物类型可以鉴定到种；包含多种淀粉粒形态的植物如栝楼（Trichosanthes kirilowii）则需要通过多种形态特征的组合规律进行鉴定。通过比较发现，文中所涉及块根块茎类植物与已知其他类型植物的淀粉粒在形态上具有较为明显的差异，能够进行区分。此研究对提升古代淀粉粒鉴定的精度，加深对古人类植物利用情况的了解具有重要意义。

Underground storage organs of plants, which are rich in starch, including roots, tubers, bulbs, rhizomes, and etc. play significant roles in prehistoric plant use stories. Starch grains analysis, prior to other archaeobotanical research methods, could provide direct micro evidence on use strategies of those plants, based on their modern starch morphologies. However, the collected modern starch morphological samples were not enough while relevant criteria were not established for their identification, so that the ancient starch grains from underground storage organs could not be identified as species, genera, or even families. This shortage limited our detailed understanding of utilizations of those kinds of plants.In order to enrich the modern starch grain morphology database and establish relevant identification standard of underground storage organs, we collect 52 species within 33 genera, 17 families for statistical measurement and comparative analysis. The result shows there are clear distinction between the starch grains from underground storage organs and other plants, such as millets, acorns, edible legumes, tribe Triticeae and etc. The morphological characteristics of starch grains from underground storage organs are diverse, including polygon, polyhedron, oval, triangle, and bell. According to this, the starch grains from underground storage organs could be divided into five groups. The first group has polyhedral shape with small size, which are from Araceae mostly; the second has the shape of breaking ball and concentric hila and some with large size may have lamellae and fissures or calcium oxalate crystals; the third group was ellipsoid with diverse sizes and features, containing 12 species; the fourth group has triangular plane shape with eccentric hila, which are mainly from Dioscoreaceae and Zingiberaceae; the fifth group contains bell-shaped starch grains with the mean sizes between 9~16 μm, including 7 species. Among those experimented samples, some of species could be identified accurately, such as air potato （Dioscorea bulbifera）, Musella lasiocarpa, owning to their starch grains with special morphological characteristics, while identification of others, like Chinese snake gourd （Trichosanthes kirilowii）, which contain several kinds of starch grains should depend on a certain assemblage of starch grains. This expansion of modern starch database of underground storage organs not only helps to improve the accuracy of identification of ancient starch and deepen the understanding of ancient plant utilization but also demonstrate the importance and necessity of modern starch morphological analysis and data accumulation.