Abstract Leaf shape analysis of three Aquilaria species was undertaken using Elliptical Fourier descriptors (EFD) within a research planting in tropical Australia. This approach was taken to develop a method for discriminating the species in the absence of reproductive traits or genetic analysis and as a morphological scale of leaf variation. Leaf outlines were analysed to distinguish variability between species. Principal components analysis and canonical discriminant analysis were applied to group the species based on 25 Fourier descriptors. Four components were required to explain 78 % of the variance and the first and second canonical functions discriminated three groups of species therefore EFD was a useful approach for analysing leaf outline variability and distinguish species in the genus Aquilaria. This approach provides a rapid method that could assist in the species identification in Aquilaria where reproductive traits are absent.

中文翻译：

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叶轮廓的椭圆傅里叶描述符：一种区分沉香属物种（百里香科）的工具

摘要 在澳大利亚热带地区的一项种植研究中，使用椭圆傅里叶描述符 (EFD) 对三种沉香属植物进行了叶形分析。这种方法被用来开发一种在缺乏生殖性状或遗传分析的情况下区分物种的方法，并作为叶片变异的形态尺度。分析叶轮廓以区分物种之间的变异性。应用主成分分析和典型判别分析基于 25 个傅立叶描述符对物种进行分组。需要四个分量来解释 78% 的方差，第一个和第二个规范函数区分了三组物种，因此 EFD 是分析叶轮廓变异性和区分沉香属物种的有用方法。