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Water Ferns: Their Origin and Spread TWENTIETH SI~ ALBERT CHARLES SEWARD MEMORIAL LECTURE 1972 WATER FERNS: THEIR ORIGIN AND SPREAD BY T. S. MAHABALE Professor of Botany, Maharashtra Association for the Cultivation of Science, Poona (India). Published by BIRBAL SAHNI INSTITUTE OF PALAEOBOTANY LUCKNOW ISSUED 1974 WATER FERNS: THEIR ORIGIN AND SPREAD BY T. s. MAHABALE Professor of B:Jtany, Maharashtra Ass:Jciation for the Cultivation of Science, Poona (India). Published by BIRBAL SAHNI INSTITUTE OF PALAEOBOTANY LUCKNOW TWENTIETH SIR ALBERT CHARLES SEWARD MEMORIAL LECTURE VvATER FERNS: THEIR ORIGIN AND SPREAD T. s. l\IAHABALE MR. CHAIRMAN, COLLEAGUES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN FEEL honoured by the invitation, that water is the very life itself, ']eevan' authorities of this Institute have ex­ as it is called in Sanskrit. No plant life I tended to me, to deliver the 20th as far as our present knowledge of Exo­ Memorial Lecture in the name of late Sir biology goes, exists without water. The Albcrt Charles Seward, my Profcssor's pro­ search is on, and one would know in future, fessor. I feel it all the more, because it whether there is anything similar to it on is here that I had my early lessons in other planets now, or had it in the distant Palaeobotany at the hands of Professor past. Various plant communities have ari­ Birbah Sahni, F.R.S. after whom this sen in water, prospered and have even Institute has been named. Work of it become extinct since ages. Some others has now increased many-fold under the have migrated to land taking temporary leadership of its present Chairman and shelter on the littoral zone, or on the banks active cooperation of highly trained workers, of rivers and margins of lakes. Others who have made a mark in the world of have not changed their aquatic habit and Palaeobotany by their devotion and dis­ habitat, as they found it more congenial tinctive contributions. To Indian Palaeo­ to live in water. Still others migrated botanists it is an academic home, a real land-wards. The conquest of land began Acad. There is no doubt that the Institute this way and terrestrial plant life came into will henceforth progress more and more. existence after a fairly long time when a Let all assembled here today wish it greater large proportion of oxygen released by glory, and work in future. plants accumulated in the air. The early The subject I have chosen for my lecture reducing atmosphere of the Earth made is of special interest, namely "Water way for the oxidizing atmosphere of it as Ferns ", as it touches both living and fossil now, and tolerance to it has been a great forms, and has provoked a number of step forward for the plant life. Here on problems yet to be solved. Watcr has land they rapidly prospered, and we have been the perpetual source for the origin, a continuous history of them for about organization, and continuation of plant 300 to 400 millions of years. But the life since the ages. It has also been a span of time preceding it is much longer, storehouse of many groups of plants. The 1000 to 1200 millions of years. However, seas, lakes, rivers, their banks, estuaries, not all plants were successful on land and mountain tarns, rapidly flowing cascades many of them reverted to aquatic life, and glaciers, each encourages unique assem­ marine or fresh water. Various taxa and blage of plants today. So they did in the plant communities adapted themselves to past. Therefore, it has been rightly said conditions of watery environment with 4 WATER FERNS: THEIR ORIGIN AND SPREAD varYlllg degrees of tolerance, and they got Intertrappean Series. They have been spread from highly luxuriant tropical forests named as Rodeit.:.s by Professor Sahni to desiccated deserts. (1943) aftu the distinguished Indian geo­ The aquatic plants on land naturally do logist, Professor K. P. Rode of Udaipur not have continuous distribution but are University. Members of the other family segregated into communities at various Salviniaceae, Azolla and Salvinia, occur, places in lakes, on river banks, estuaries, on the other hand, much more widely in mountain lakes covered with snow etc. U.S.A., U.S.S.R., in Great Britain on the The limiting factor for their spread natu­ Island of Wight, in Holland, Australia, rally is water. Should such isolated plant mostly from post-Cretaceous period till now. communities be cut off from each other Naturally such a distinct group continuing or be dried up for any reasons, they become till today is expected to have a continuous progressively less and less in number and history; but alas! such an expectation is their population decreases, and they become far from being realized. sparse. Some become rare and have to The distinctive characters of the group face intensive competition from other Hydropteridinieae, are heterospory, sporo­ aquatic biotic groups of plants and carps and aquatic habit. It is a highly animals. Ultimately they become rare artificial unit, as quite unrelated groups and eventually disappear on land. After of plants grow together as an aquatic com­ all rariety is undoubtedly the fore-runner munity in the same place. This has tickled of extinction. This in short is the general many botanists, and made difficult to trace story of biology 01 water plants. As a their origin and relationships. In the earlier rule they are wonderfully well adapted to works on Ferns it was customary to recog­ their environment, e.g. mangroves, cacti nize them as a single group on par with and other plants growing in the deserb of the Eusporangisteae - another very pro­ Arizona, Kizil-Kum and Rajasthan, or the blematic and heterogenous group, and the Alpine plants. The water ferns are in no Leptosporangiateae forming the majority way different than others and have to face of present day ferns. The Rhizocarpi or the same fate in course of their wanderings Hydropteridineae as they were called, are on different continents in different eras. not related to each other among themselves, They are a small group of Filicales and although they have two common characters, are supposed to haVe come into existence heterospory and sporocarps. Both families during the last part of the Cretaceous have leaf characters and anatomy modified period. They have no direct relations to suit the life in water and for dispersal. earlier. They are supposed to be a high­ Their original characters are masked by the ly evolved group amongst ferns. They reduced characters due to aquatic habit and comprise two small families, the Salvinia­ it is difficult to decide what characters are .ceae and Marsileaceae. Of these the Sal­ really conservative. They comprise only viniaceae appear:; to be earlier as it occurs a few genera. The Salvaniaceae has two in the Uppermost Cretaceous period. A genera: Salvinia with about 10 species and few fossil spon:s such as A rcellites (Pyro­ Azolla with about 6 well recognized species. bolospora) are claimed to be belonging to The Marsileaceae has three genera: M arsilea the Marsileaceae. They occur in still earlier with about 70 species spread all over the strata of Holland, Belgium, U.S.A. etc. world, many of which are found in Australia, But the memberspositiv(Jy belonging to Pilularia having six species found in Europe the Marsileaceae are known only from the and America, and Regnellidium having one Tertiary strata of India in the Deccan species endemic to Southern Brazil. We \V.HER FERNS: THEiR ORIG1N .\ND SPRE.-\D 5 have only small material for comparison, in salt marshes in the tropical seas. It and, therefore, analogies drawn mainly produces golden coloured sporophylb and on the basis of a common structure such as has striking spores. Its sari are distributed sporocarp \,vould be erroneous. At the all over the back side of leaf in a charac­ same time suggested relationship of the teristic manner and its spores are typically Salviniaceae with Hymenophyllaceae, and trilete. They are known to be 'present in of ~Iarsileaceae with the Cyatheaceae or the Lower Miocene pollen Bora of the Schizaeaceae often becomes a scholastic Klodnica Valley of Upper Silesia. Two effort. Hymenophyllum has 13 as the basic fossil species of spore~ arr rE-cognized. One number of chromosomes, whereas Azolla is identical with the spores of ACl'ostichum has 11 and Salvinia has 9. In the majority aureum and the other with those of A. of species of M al'silea this number is 20. axillare occurring at present in Java, Su­ In Regnellidium it is 19. In Schizaeaceae matra, Borneo, India and Ceylon. The basic number is 10, and the other numbers latter species, like its counterpart, is not a known are 10, 77 and 38. In Cyatheaceae, mangrove but an epiphyte growing on the which are tree ferns, n = 35. To these branches of trees in deep tropical and three genera of the Marsileaceae one has sub-tropical forests. In the Indian Ter­ to add an extinct form genus, Rodeites, tiaries these spores have not yet been irrespective of its taxonomic status whether recognized, as very little is known about as an independent genus or as a species of the tolerance of these species to the degrees Regnellidium. This point will be discussed of salinity. Consequently the limits of later. their zonation along sea coast and estuaries Ferns as a group are essentially shade are not known. If cultivated A. aureum and water loving plants. Their real home also grows as a fresh water fern. is tropics where there is maximum concen­ The other water fern Ceratopteris prefers tration of genera and species as Manton fresh water marshes and lakE-so It is a and Sledge (1954) found.
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