The objective of this work was to compare plants of the Coffea arabica L. cv. Catuaí-Vermelho and C. canephora Pierre cv. Conilon species in relation to the net photosynthesis rate and aspects of leaf anatomy. Coffea canephora plants presented higher net photosynthetic rate, transpiratory rate and leaf conductance rate than C. arabica plants, which presented smaller photochemical capacity of photosystem I, and shorter and thicker leaves than C. canephora. Both species differed also in relationship to the type, number and dimensions of stomata in the leaf epiderm: they are paracytics in C. arabica and actinocytics in C. canephora, and they are larger, but in smaller number in C. arabica.
Coffea arabica; Coffea canephora; photosynthesis; stomata; plant anatomy; biochemical reactions
