PSILOTUM NUDUM (L.) P. BEAUV. (PSILOT ACEAE), A NEW RECORD FOR THE FLORA OF IRAN
A. A. Rezaei & Sh. Khangholi
Rezaei, A. A. & Khangholi, Sh. 2003 12 30: Psi/otum nudum (L.) P. Beauv. (Psi/otaceae), a new record for the flora ofIran. -Iran. Journ Bot. 10 (1): 1- 3. Tehran. Specimens of Psilotum nudum (L.) P. Beauv. were collected in a natural habitat in a program for the collecting of plants and establishment of a herbarium in Mazandaran. These specimens were found as epiphyte in the cavities on old trees of Parrotia persica (DC.) C.A. Meyer. (Iron tree) which filled with decomposing plant residues. Then available books and flora about the Ptredophytes of Iran were revised but the species had not been reported. These specimens were later on named Psi/otum nudum, which is a new record for the flora of Iran. The species is a perennial herb and has branched rhizome and aerial stems with dichotomous branches. Foliar appendages are scale-like and once-forked. Sporangia are 3-locular and 3-lobed, occur above the base of forked sporophylls and each lobe exhibits loculicidal dehiscence at maturity.
Ayat Allah Rezaei Nodehi & Shahpour Khangholi, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Shahed University, P.o. Box 46931, Ramsar, Iran.
Key words. Psilotaceae, Psilotum nudum, Mazandaran, Iran, new record .
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L:.>IJj;-'""1 .l5i Psilotum nudum (L.) P. Beauv. alive today and it is often described as "living Mazandaran: Ramsar, on the road to fossils" because of high similarity in many Limashak, on parrotia persica trees, 60 m, aspects to the earliest tracheophyts of the 5.6.2003, Rezaei & Maassoumi 83501 (TARI). Silurian - Devonian periods, e.g., Cooksonia, In a program of collecting plants for the Agalophyton (Judd & al. 1999). Psilotum establishment of West Mazandaran herbarium, nudum is a herbaceous plant up to 35 cm the specimens of a fern - like species were occurs as epiphyte on trunk of Parrotia persica found on trunk of Parrotta persica (DC) CA. (Iron tree). Roots absent, the branched rhizome Meyer trees in Ramsar, Ramak river, altitude bears numerous rhizoids. Aerial stems erect, about 40 m from sea level and collected. Then nearly tetrangular, glabrous and dichotomously available books and flora about pteridophytes branched. Foliar appendages helically of Iran were revised but the species had not arranged, scalelike, once-forked, veinless. been reported from Iran. These specimens Sporangia 3-locular and 3-lobed, were later on named Psilotum nudum (L.) P. approximately 2 mrn wide, short-stalked above Beauv, which is a new record for the flora of the base of forked sporophylls and each lobe Iran. exhibits loculicidal dehiscence at maturity The division Psilotophyta is made up of (Fig. 1). Homosporous; spores bean-shaped, living plants comprising one class, one order, pale in color. Gametophyte subterranean. one fam iIy and two genera (Psilotum and Tntcsipterisi. So, all of the taxa are new to References Iran. It is native to the southeastern region of Gifford, E. M. & A. S. Foster. 1989: the United States, Japan, Australia and New Morphology and evolution of vascular Zealand (Gifford & Foster 1989). It is plants. -Freeman and Company. New York. noteworthy that the species is one of on ly a Judd, W. S., C S. Campbell, E. A. Kellogg & few surviving members of an ancient group of P. F. Stevens. 1999: Plant Systematics; a vascular plants, accepted by some botanists as phylogenetic approach. -Sinauer Associates, the most primitive - certainly the most Inc. Sunderland. primitive - looking and simplest vascular plant IRAN. JOURN. BOT. 10 (l), 2003 Psi/alum nadum 3 ., I I I I I Fig. 1. Psilotum mudum (x 1.5); sporangium (x 10); dehiscent sporangium (x 10).