Rich Mesic Forest, a Northeastern variant of the species-rich Mixed Mesophytic Forest association of eastern North America, is an Acer saccharumdominated forest type typically associated with calcareous bedrock and nutrient-rich, mull soils. Rich Mesic Forest (RMF) is a priority for conservation in the Northeast due to its limited areal extent, high plant species richness, and numerous rare tax...

BACKGROUND Fern Distortion Syndrome (FDS) is a serious disease of Leatherleaf fern (Rumohra adiantiformis). The main symptom of FDS is distortion of fronds, making them unmarketable. Additional symptoms include stunting, irregular sporulation, decreased rhizome diameter, and internal discoloration of rhizomes. We previously reported an association of symptoms with increased endophytic rhizome p...

Spermiogenesis in the water fern Marsilea vestita is a rapid process that requires the de novo formation of basal bodies in a cytoplasmic particle known as a blepharoplast. Spermiogenesis is activated by placing dry spores into water and is dependent upon the translation of new proteins from stored mRNAs with little, if any, new transcription. We looked at the necessity of cell division cycles ...

Strata exposed near Tabbowa Tank, Tabbowa Basin, western Sri Lanka have yielded the first representatives of the distinctive Permian Glossopteris flora from that country. The assemblage includes gymnosperm foliage attributable to Glossopteris raniganjensis, roots referable to Vertebraria australis, seeds assigned to Samaropsis sp., sphenophyte axes (Paracalamites australis) and foliage (Sphenop...

An exhaustive survey of vascular epiphytes on a single mature canopy tree in a Costa Rican tropical premontane wet forest revealed an extraordinary level of epiphyte diversity. A total of 126 morphospecies representing at least 52 genera and 21 plant families were found growing epiphytically on the phorophyte (host tree), accounting for more than 1% of the entire vascular flora of Costa Rica. T...

The processes that govern diverse tropical plant communities have rarely been studied in life forms other than trees. Structurally dependent vascular epiphytes, a major part of tropical biodiversity, grow in a three-dimensional matrix defined by their hosts, but trees differ in their architecture, bark structure/chemistry and leaf phenology. We hypothesized that the resulting seasonal differenc...

The effect of ultraviolet-B (280 to 320 nm) irradiation on physiological activities of Anabaena flos-aquae and the water fern Azolla caroliniana has been studied under conditions where lethal effects of irradiation are absent. Nitrogenase activity, measured as acetylene reduction, specifically declined during irradiation with low levels of ultraviolet-B, whereas other physiological activities w...

Distinct leaf laminar growth dynamics have been found previously in some filicalean ferns and angiosperm seed plants: a discrete zone of marginal growth versus diffuse intercalary growth throughout the leaf without a conspicuous marginal growth zone. The fern pinnules for which marginal growth is known are also morphologically distinct from dicots: one or two orders of dichotomizing veins endin...

The insecticidal pyrrole chlorfenapyr was applied to concrete, vinyl tile, and plywood surfaces, at an application rate of 1.1 gAIm . Adult Tribolium castaneum (Herbst), the red flour beetle, and adult Tribolium confusum (Du Val), the confused flour beetle, were exposed for 2 and 4 h, removed, and held without food for 7 d post-exposure. All beetles survived the initial exposures, but survival ...