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Abstract
Ruderals are plants that have capacity to strive and grow in disturbed and polluted environment such as roadsides. Eleusine indica is an example of a ruderal found along the roadside. It is very widely distributed and very invasive weed. It has shown to have ability to withstand pollution created by vehicles. Automobiles usage in cities has greatly increase with development and urbanization. These pollutions include air pollutants such as NOx, SO2, O3and particulate matters like Pb, Hg and other heavy metals. The experiments were carried out to investigate the impact of these aggravated pollution as a result increase in traffic in Benin city, Edo state, Nigeria. In carrying out the experiment samples were collected along the major roads in Benin city. Ten sites were selected and these were Aduwawa market road sides, Auchi bypass roadside, Agbor road market roadside, Asaba bypass roadside, S and T Barracks market roadside, Lagos bypass roadside, Santana market roadside, Sapele bypass road, Ekenwan bypass roadside, Okhokhugbo market roadside. The comparative analysis between the sizes, numbers and structure of the stomata and epidermal cells of Eleusine indica found in polluted environment (roadsides) and less or zero polluted environment (farmland) was carried out. It was observed that an increase in the number of stomatal in the adaxial layer of the leave at sample site as against the control whereas in the abaxial layer of the cell there was a decrease in the number of stomata as compared to the control. The size of the guard cells diameter of the epidermal cells and thickness of the stomata found at both the lower and upper layers of the polluted samples decreased in relation to the samples from the less polluted environment. The anatomical modification of the epidermal cells are the potentials used by the Eleusine indica for extraction of pollution from automobile, improving the capacity for phytoremediation.
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