Experimental Studies on Gametophytic generation of Dryopteris species

A fern gametophyte is a small, photosynthetic organism capable of normal development in culture. It has usually both the sex organs leading to the belief that self-fertilization is probably the rule. But this would lead to great deal of homozygosity and consequently little morphological variation. But it is generally found that ferns exhibit a lot of morphological and cytological variation which is due to cross fertilization. The present study is an attempt to investigate the reasons for these variations by studying the gametophytic generation in Dryopteris caroli-hopei Fraser.-Jenk., D. chrysocoma (Christ) and D. cochleata (Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don). Ripe spores of these species were raised on ½ Knop’s nutrient medium and their growth was studied. It was noticed that in a population of gametophytes some were fast growing and some were slow growing. The slow growing gametophytes usually remain only male throughout the life.