The Structure of Individual Variability of Pollen Morphological Features of the Genus Physalis L. (Solanaceae) and Methods of Its Interpretation (Genesis or Morphoses)

The morphology of pollen grains in samples of 42 species of the genus Physalis L. was studied using light and electron scanning microscopes. Pollen is morphologically fairly uniform. Although the intrageneric subgroups (subgenera and sections) are heterogeneous in terms of pollen morphology, it is not possible to draw boundaries between them, since the same variants of characters are found in different subgenera and sections. SEM-detected sculpture details are good additional features for the characterization of some species. The pollen of P. alkekengi, sometimes isolated as a monotypic subgenus Physalis, or a separate genus, slightly differs from all other Physalis in micro-verrucate-echinate sculpture. In samples of 19 species (44% of those studied), various rare pollen forms deviating from the typical ones in the number and arrangement of apertures were found. By the example of morphological features of pollen of the genus Physalis and other unrelated taxa, the properties of the complete individual variability of the gametophyte generation are described as an extreme model (having maximum completeness with minimal complexity) for studying the properties of variability. A non-typological description and interpretation of the observed properties of individual morphological variability is given. Its own properties of variability (continuity, transitive ordering, parallelism) are described and are not fully provided for in the typological and phylogenetic approach, in which the genus-species discrete-hierarchical ordering of biodiversity is considered universal. The described properties of variability show that, during asexual reproduction in the gametophyte generation of pollen (ontologically complete and genetically uniform; haploid, unicellular, spherical living bodies), the ancestral type of organization is not inherited (the typical form is taxon-specific, physiologically normal, adaptive, functional), but with a certain frequency in the generation (in the absence of genetic variability), morphoses arise (rebirth of form—noninherited, but regularly occurring variability), which add up to the series of metamorphoses. In the full generation of the genealogical line, there is not the genesis of the form (generation, the emergence of one form from another), but morphosis (rebirth of the form, change in generic characteristics, archetype, body scheme, without changing the species characteristics). Individual variability can be described as metamorphosis, the fluidity of an individual form, according to J.W. Goethe (complete sets of morphoses, forming a continuous and successive morphological series of living bodies between various typical forms), or the indeterminacy of discrete forms in a continuous series of variability.