The ferns are a group of vascular plants that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissues that conduct water and nutrients and in having life cycles in which the branched sporophyte is the dominant phase.
Ophioglossum, the adder's-tongue ferns, is a genus of about 50 species of ferns in the family Ophioglossaceae. The name Ophioglossum comes from the Greek meaning "snake-tongue". Their cosmopolitan distribution is mainly in tropical and subtropical habitats.
The order Pinales in the division Pinophyta, class Pinopsida, comprises all the extant conifers. The distinguishing characteristic is the reproductive structure known as a cone produced by all Pinales. All of the extant conifers, such as Araucaria, cedar, celery-pine, cypress, fir, juniper, kauri, larch, pine, redwood, spruce, and yew, are included here. Some fossil conifers, however, belong to other distinct orders within the division Pinophyta.
The Celastrales are an order of flowering plants found throughout the tropics and subtropics, with only a few species extending far into the temperate regions. The 1200 to 1350 species are in about 100 genera. All but seven of these genera are in the large family Celastraceae. Until recently, the composition of the order and its division into families varied greatly from one author to another.
Amborella is a monotypic genus of understory shrubs or small trees endemic to the main island, Grande Terre, of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The genus is the only member of the family Amborellaceae and the order Amborellales and contains a single species, Amborella trichopoda. Amborella is of great interest to plant systematists because molecular phylogenetic analyses consistently place it as the sister group to all other flowering plants.
Ophioglossaceae, the adder's-tongue family, is a small family of ferns. In the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016, it is the only family in the order Ophioglossales, which together with the Psilotales is placed in the subclass Ophioglossidae. The Ophioglossidae are one of the groups traditionally known as eusporangiate ferns. Members of the family differ from other ferns in a number of ways. Many have only a single fleshy leaf at a time. Their gametophytes are subterranean and rely on fungi for energy.
Marattiaceae is the only family of extant (living) ferns in the order Marattiales. In the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016, Marattiales is the only order in the subclass Marattiidae. The family has six genera and about 110 species. Many are different in appearance from other ferns, having large fronds and fleshy rootstocks.
The genus Ophioderma are distinctive ferns in the family Ophioglossaceae. Ophioderma is closely related to, and sometimes treated as a subgenus of, the genus Ophioglossum. It includes the genus formerly known as Cheiroglossa. Recent genetic analysis has indicated that the two genera should be treated as one, and Ophioderma has precedence by being validly published at an earlier date. The type species is Ophioderma pendulum.
Psilotaceae is a family of ferns consisting of two genera, Psilotum and Tmesipteris with about a dozen species. It is the only family in the order Psilotales.
Davallia is a genus of about 40 species of fern. In the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016, it is the only genus in the family Davalliaceae, which is placed in the suborder Polypodiineae, order Polypodiales. Alternatively, the family may be placed in a very broadly defined family Polypodiaceae sensu lato as the subfamily Davallioideae.
Batrachognathus is an extinct genus of anurognathid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic Karabastau Formation of the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. The genus was named in 1948 by the Russian paleontologist Anatoly Nicolaevich Ryabinin. The type species is Batrachognathus volans. The genus name is derived from Greek batrakhos, "frog" and gnathos, "jaw", in reference to the short wide head. The specific epithet means "flying" in Latin.
Eusporangiate ferns are vascular spore plants, whose sporangia arise from several epidermal cells and not from a single cell as in leptosporangiate ferns. Typically these ferns have reduced root systems and sporangia that produce large amounts of spores
Polysporangiophytes, also called polysporangiates or formally Polysporangiophyta, are plants in which the spore-bearing generation (sporophyte) has branching stems (axes) that bear sporangia. The name literally means 'many sporangia plant'. The clade includes all land plants (embryophytes) except for the bryophytes whose sporophytes are normally unbranched, even if a few exceptional cases occur. While the definition is independent of the presence of vascular tissue, all living polysporangiophytes also have vascular tissue, i.e., are vascular plants or tracheophytes. Extinct polysporangiophytes are known that have no vascular tissue and so are not tracheophytes.
The euphyllophytes are a clade of plants within the tracheophytes. The group may be treated as an unranked clade, a division under the name Euphyllophyta or a subdivision under the name Euphyllophytina. The euphyllophytes are characterized by the possession of true leaves ("megaphylls"), and comprise one of two major lineages of extant vascular plants. As shown in the cladogram below, the euphyllophytes have a sister relationship to the lycopodiophytes or lycopsids. Unlike the lycopodiophytes, which consist of relatively few presently living or extant taxa, the euphyllophytes comprise the vast majority of vascular plant lineages that have evolved since both groups shared a common ancestor more than 400 million years ago. The euphyllophytes consist of two lineages, the spermatophytes or seed plants such as flowering plants (angiosperms) and gymnosperms, and the Polypodiophytes or ferns, as well as a number of extinct fossil groups.
Cardiopteridaceae is a eudicot family of flowering plants. It consists of about 43 species of trees, shrubs, and woody vines, mostly of the tropics, but with a few in temperate regions. It contains six genera, the largest of which is Citronella, with 21 species. The other genera are much smaller.
Mesangiospermae is a clade of flowering plants (angiosperms), informally called "mesangiosperms". They are one of two main groups of angiosperms. It is a name created under the rules of the PhyloCode system of phylogenetic nomenclature. There are about 350,000 species of mesangiosperms. The mesangiosperms contain about 99.95% of the flowering plants, assuming that there are about 175 species not in this group and about 350,000 that are. While such a clade with a similar circumscription exists in the APG III system, it was not given a name.
Polypodiineae is a suborder of ferns in the order Polypodiales. It is equivalent to the clade eupolypods I in earlier systems, and to the very broadly defined family Polypodiaceae in the classification of Christenhusz & Chase (2014). It probably diverged from the suborder Aspleniineae during the mid-Cretaceous. The divergence is supported by both molecular data and an often overlooked morphological characteristic which lies in the vasculature of the petiole. Most species that make up the suborder have three vascular bundles. The only exceptions are the grammitid ferns which have one, and the genus Hypodematium which has two. This differs from eupolypods II which mostly have two vascular bundles.
Ophioglossum lusitanicum, the least adder's-tongue, is a small fern of the family Ophioglossaceae. It is a pan-tropically species categorised as least concern by the IUCN (2001).
Ophioglossum petiolatum is a species of fern in the family Ophioglossaceae. William Jackson Hooker named this species in 1823.
Ophioglossum reticulatum, the netted adder's-tongue, is a species of fern in the family Ophioglossaceae. It has a pantropical/pansubtropical distribution; Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar, Yemen, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, warmer parts of China, Malesia, Korea, Japan, and many tropical islands. A hexaploid, it has the highest number of chromosomes of any plant, 720. Its leaves—or leaf, individuals only grow one per year—are edible, and are regularly consumed by people in Africa and Asia.
Sun, B.-Y., M.H. Kim, C.H. Kim, and C.-W. Park. 2001. Mankyua (Ophioglossaceae): a new fern genus from Cheju Island, Korea. Taxon 50: 1019-1024.
