Abstract
THE Schizaeaceae, one of the most ancient families of ferns, are represented to-day by four surviving genera, namely, Schizaea, Lygodium, Anemia, and Mohria, The very great age of the Schizaeaceae is attested by the Carboniferous genus Senftenbergia, which was demonstrated by Kadforth1 to be beyond reasonable doubt a member of this family. On account of the great antiquity of the family, the cytology of these plants has considerable importance for fern phylogeny. The four living genera are linked together by the very characteristic Schizaeaceous sporangium, but are otherwise notable for the very great morphological differences that exist between them. Morphological investigations thus suggest that only a rather distant affinity exists between the extant genera, and this indication is clearly supported by the chromosome numbers reported so far, namely, n = 772, c.943, 964, 1034, c. 2703, 350–3705 and c. 5406 in Schizaea, n = 297, 304,5,7, 587, 605, and c. 706 in Lygodium, and n = 387–9 and 767–9 in Anemia.
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Lovis, J., ROY, S. A Chromosome Count in Mohria. Nature 201, 1348 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1038/2011348a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2011348a0
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