Abstract: In the present work, pollen grains of 9 species of Trapa L. from Zhejiang were examined under LM and SEM. They are subsphaeroidal or subprolate, obtuse-triangular in polar view, elliptic or subrounded in equatorial view, and 3-colpate. In the equatorial area, there are three ridge-shaped appendages which elongates along apertures toward two poles and ultimately combined, the ornamentation of other part of exine is minute-verrucate. The genus Trapa is uniform in shape of pollen grains, type and position of apertures and ornamentation of exine, while differentiation can be found in size of pollen grains and shape of ridge-shaped appendage. All of these provide valuable evidence for the classification of Trapa and the verification of their affinities. The validity of Trapaceae, the evolutionarytrends of pollen morphology and the affinities of some species are discussed in this paper.

Key words: Pollen morphology, Trapa, Zhejiang, China