Flowers sensu lato are short, specialized axes bearing closely aggregated sporophylls. They are typical for seed plants (spermatophytes) and are prominent in flowering plants sensu stricto (angiosperms), where they often comprise an attractive perianth. There is evidence that spermatophytes evolved from gymnosperm-like plants with a fern-like mode of reproduction called progymnosperms. It seems...

Plant architecture is determined by cell division and growth, thus simulation models describing these processes are ideal for determining how local development produces the overall plant form. Because fern gametophytes are structurally simple, they are ideal for investigating the effects of cellular growth and division on plant form. In this work we examine the gametophytic development of Schiz...

The fern Dicranopteris dichotoma is an important pioneer species of the understory in Masson pine (Pinus massoniana) forests growing on acidic soils in the subtropical and tropical China. To improve our understanding of the role of D. dichotoma in nitrogen (N) uptake of these forests, a short-term (15)N experiment was conducted at mountain ridge (MR, with low N level) and mountain foot (MF, wit...

Premise of the study Brainea insignis (Aspleniaceae) is an endangered tree fern in China whose wild populations have been seriously damaged due to overexploitation. Expressed sequence tag-simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) primers were developed to investigate its genetic diversity and provide resources for future conservation studies. Methods and Results We obtained 72,897 unigenes of B. insig...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Hawaii is home to 238 native and 35 alien fern and lycophyte taxa distributed across steep gradients in elevation and resource availability. The fern flora spans a wide range of growth forms, with extraordinary diversity in morphology and plant size. Yet the potential factors underlying this diversity have remained enigmatic. METHODS We used a trait database generated fro...

G. Fern andez Signal Processing Laboratory Swiss Federal Institute of Technology CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail [email protected] J-P Zr yd Plant Cell Genetics Laboratory University of Lausanne CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail [email protected]

The water fern Azolla harbors nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium Anabaena azollae as symbiont in its dorsal leaves and is known as potent N2 fixer. Present investigation was carried out to study the influence of fresh Azolla when used as basal incorporation in soil and as dual cropped with rice variety Mahsoori separately and together with and without chemical nitrogen fertilizer in pots kept under...

Albusambia elaphoglossumae Solis & Davis, a new genus and species, is described. It was discovered mining the fronds of the fern Elaphoglossum conspersum in Costa Rica (San José and Cartago Provinces, at elevations of 2300-3100 m). The type series was obtained by rearing of the immature stages in laboratory. The adult is defined by unique genital characters, and the pupa with a medial depressio...

Background and objectives: The main aims of this study have been finding out the antibacterial activity and preliminary phytochemical screening of some fern species. Methods: The antimicrobial activity of the methanol extracts of Polypodium interjectum Shivas, Polystichum woronowii Fomin, Polystichum aculeatum (L.) Roth., Dryopteris affinis (Lowe) Fraser-Jenk...

BACKGROUND The Pteridaceae family is the largest fern family in Togo by its specific and generic diversity. Like all other families of ferns in the country, Pteridaceae are poorly studied and has no identification key. The objective of this study is to perform a taxonomic revision and list establishment of this family of leptosporangiate ferns in the light of current available knowledge about t...