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. 2018 Apr 12;8(1):5911.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-24135-2.

Discovery of the World's Smallest Terrestrial Pteridophyte

Mitesh Patel  1 , Mandadi Narsimha Reddy  2
Affiliations

Discovery of the World's Smallest Terrestrial Pteridophyte

Mitesh Patel et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Ophioglossum L. commonly known as "adder's tongue fern", has been of great interest due to the highest number of chromosomes in any organism so far known in biological world. Here, a new species of adder's tongue fern has been discovered and reported from Western Ghats of India. It is prominently distinct from the other known taxa in Ophioglossaceae family. Phylogenetic analysis of three chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) regions (trnL-F, rbcL and psbA-trnH) unambiguously designate this adder's tongue fern as the distinct lineage and is sister to the clade containing O. parvifolium and O. nudicaule. Azolla caroliniana - an aquatic fern (average size, 0.5-1.5 cm), is the smallest fern on the earth. Our discovery discloses a new species of adder's tongue fern and ranking it among the smallest terrestrial fern in the world, attaining an average size of only 1-1.2 cm.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
O. malviae sp. nov. (A,B and D) Entire plant (C). Tropophyll size, shape and venation.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Spore structure of O. malviae sp. nov. (A). Spores – dorsal, ventral views in light microscopy (B). Spore has triradiate mark in light microscopy (C). Four layers of spore 1). Perine, 2). Ectexine 3). Endexine and 4). Intine in light microscopy (D). SEM image of whole spore from dorsal side covering with perine layer (E). Spore with triradiate mark in fluorescence microscopy (F). SEM image of spore from ventral side.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparision of spore structure under SEM. (A) O. malviae sp. nov. distal face (B). O. malviae sp. nov. proximal face (C). SEM analysis of surface of dried trophophyll O. malviae sp. nov. with distribution of distinct types of stomata (D). O. parvifolium distal face (E). O. parvifolium proximal face (F). Enlargement of stomata showing dome like papillae.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Phylogeny of Ophioglossum species based on concatenated rbcL, trnL-F, and psbA-trnH data by using maximum likelihood analysis. ML bootstrap percentages (BP) are above branches and Bayesian posterior probabilities (BPP) are below the branches.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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