Problems Involved in the Proper Identification of Ferns

The paper illustrates how the meiotic Counts of six species of wild ferns namely, Hicriopteris glauca Copel. showing n=56, Pteris vittata L. sensu Holttum (1954) showing n=58 (Figs. 4 & 4a), Pteris biaurita L. sensu lato showing n=3n=87 (Figs. 2, 2a, 3 & 3a), Blechnum orientale L. sensu lato showing n=2n=34, Cyclosorus dentatus Forsk. sensu lato showing n=36 (Figs. 1 & 1a) and Polystichum aculeatum (L.) Roth sensu lato showing n=82, prove useful in their identifications and in finding out their modes of reproduction i.e. sexual or apogamous. These observations also confirm in general the Previous findings by few other workers on the materials from Darjeeling, Ceylon and West Africa. So far as the investigator is aware, this is the first report on the signs of apogamy on the diploid level in B. orientale L., on the triploid level in P. biaurita L. and on the availability of a new diploid cytotype provisionally placed under C. dentatus Forsk. among ferns collected from Shillong and some adjacent areas on the Khasi hills.