Mickelia
Encyclopedia
Mickelia is a genus
of fern
s in the family
Dryopteridaceae
. It is one of the six genera of bolbitidoid ferns and is sister to the very large genus Elaphoglossum. It consists of 10 species
. All are native
to the neotropics.
or terrestrial
ferns. Rhizome
s dorsiventral, the ventral meristele elongate in cross section
. Phyllopodia absent. Leaves
articulate at base or continuous with the rhizome, dimorphic
as sporophyll
s and trophophylls, the sporophylls having longer petioles
and smaller pinnae
. Fronds never differentiated into bathyphylls and acrophylls as in the bolbitidoid genera Lomagramma, Arthrobotrya, and Teratophyllum. Fronds singly pinnate
or bipinnate with a single, free, basal segment on each of the basal pinnae. Pinnae articulate or continuous with the rachis
; terminal pinna conform (similar in size and shape to the lateral pinnae). Veins variously anastomosing
(not free); veinlets usually included in the areole
s. Sori
acrostichoid (covering the entire abaxial surface of the leaf); Paraphyses
absent. Spore
s monolete.
, but the rhizomes of five species of Mickelia have been examined and found to have ground tissue
that is greenish, instead of the whitish color found in most ferns. The greenish rhizome ground tissue might be a synapomorphy
for Mickelia. Seven species of Mickelia are hemiepiphytes, whereas all of the Bolbitis species are terrestrial. The location of vegetative bud
s, when present, is different in the two genera.
of the bolbitidoid ferns, based on DNA sequence
s of the chloroplast
intergenic spacers trnL-F and rps4-trnS. Mickelia was named
for the American
pteridologist John Thomas Mickel, who contributed much regarding Elaphoglossum, the closest relative
of Mickelia.
Six species of Mickelia had previously been in the genus Bolbitis. Mickelia pradoi and Mickelia furcata were first described in the paper that established Mickelia. Mickelia scandens was resurrected from Mickelia guianensis, which had previously been in Lomagramma because of its venation pattern. These two had been treated as a single species since the time when they were both in the genus Acrostichum
. For this reason, the most recent species name that had been applied to Mickelia scandens was Acrostichum scandens.
The species that had been in Bolbitis were described in a monograph
of that genus in 1977. The mesoamerican species of Bolbitis were given an updated treatment in 1995 and detailed biogeographic information for these was published in 2004. Mickelia was first described in a synopsis
of the genus that did not repeat much of the information published in previous works
.
below is based on one that was published in 2010. The positions
of Mickelia pradoi and Mickelia lindigii are based on morphology
only. Mickelia furcata and Mickelia pergamentacea are omitted because they have not been sampled
for DNA
and morphology does not clearly indicate their affinities
. Mickelia furcata is known from only one specimen
collected
in 1985 and lacking fertile fronds.
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
of fern
Fern
A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants...
s in the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Dryopteridaceae
Dryopteridaceae
Dryopteridaceae, is a family of leptosporangiate ferns in the order Polypodiales. They are known colloquially as the wood ferns. They comprise about 1700 species and have a cosmopolitan distribution. They may be terrestrial, epipetric, hemiepiphytic, or epiphytic. Many are cultivated as...
. It is one of the six genera of bolbitidoid ferns and is sister to the very large genus Elaphoglossum. It consists of 10 species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
. All are native
Indigenous (ecology)
In biogeography, a species is defined as native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...
to the neotropics.
Species
- Mickelia bernoulii ( KuhnFriedrich Adalbert Maximilian KuhnFriedrich Adalbert Maximilian Kuhn was a German botanist. He went by the name "Max," and his name was often written "Maximilian Friedrich Adalbert Kuhn." He worked with Konrad H. Christ and Georg Heinrich Mettenius.- References :*...
ex. H. ChristKonrad H. ChristKonrad Hermann Heinrich Christ , often known in citations as just "Christ" or "H. Christ", was a Swiss pteridologist botanist who specialized in ferns. He was a lecturer and professor of botany at Basel, Switzerland. The fern genus Christella is named in his honour.-Publications:*Christ, K. H. H....
) R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue - Mickelia furcata R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue
- Mickelia guianensis ( AubletJean Baptiste Christophore Fusée AubletJean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet was a French pharmacist, botanist and explorer.Born in Salon-de-Provence, he joined the French East India Company and in 1752 was sent to Mauritius to establish a pharmacy and a botanical garden. He worked there for nine years...
) R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue - Mickelia hemiotis ( MaxonWilliam Ralph MaxonWilliam Ralph Maxon, was an American botanist and pteridologist. He graduated from Syracuse University with a Ph.B. in 1898, and spent about one year at Columbia University doing post-graduate work on ferns with Lucien Marcus Underwood...
) R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue - Mickelia lindigii ( MetteniusGeorg Heinrich MetteniusGeorg Heinrich Mettenius was a German botanist who was a native of Frankfurt am Main. He was son-in-law to botanist Alexander Braun ....
) R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue - Mickelia nicotianifolia (Olof SwartzOlof SwartzOlof Peter Swartz was a Swedish botanist and taxonomist. He is best known for his taxonomic work and studies into pteridophytes...
) R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue - Mickelia oligarchica ( BakerJohn Gilbert BakerJohn Gilbert Baker was an English botanist.Baker was born in Guisborough, the son of John and Mary Baker and educated at Quaker schools in Ackworth and York....
) R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue - Mickelia pergamentacea (Maxon) R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue
- Mickelia pradoi R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue
- Mickelia scandens ( RaddiGiuseppe RaddiGiuseppe Raddi was an Italian botanist.-Biography:He was apprenticed to a druggist, but obtained employment in the Museum of Natural History of Florence. Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, afterward became his protector, and in 1817 sent him to Brazil to study the cryptogams of the country...
) R.C. Moran, Labiak, & Sundue
Description
HemiepiphyticHemiepiphyte
A hemiepiphyte is a plant which begins its life as an epiphyte but which later grows roots down into the ground. The seeds of hemiepiphytes germinate in the canopy and initially live epiphytically...
or terrestrial
Terrestrial plant
A terrestrial plant is one that grows on land. Other types of plants are aquatic , epiphytic , lithophytes and aerial ....
ferns. Rhizome
Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes...
s dorsiventral, the ventral meristele elongate in cross section
Cross section
Cross section may refer to:* Cross section , the intersection of a 3-dimensional body with a plane* Cross-sectional views in architecture & engineering* Radar cross section, the unit of measure of how detectable an object is with a radar...
. Phyllopodia absent. Leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
articulate at base or continuous with the rhizome, dimorphic
Frond dimorphism
Frond dimorphism refers to a difference in ferns between the fertile and sterile fronds. Since ferns, unlike flowering plants, bear spores on the leaf blade itself, this may affect the form of the frond itself...
as sporophyll
Sporophyll
A sporophyll is a leaf that bears sporangia. Both microphylls and megaphylls can be sporophylls. In heterosporous plants, sporophylls bear either megasporangia , or microsporangia...
s and trophophylls, the sporophylls having longer petioles
Petiole (botany)
In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...
and smaller pinnae
Frond
The term frond refers to a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group...
. Fronds never differentiated into bathyphylls and acrophylls as in the bolbitidoid genera Lomagramma, Arthrobotrya, and Teratophyllum. Fronds singly pinnate
Pinnate
Pinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna meaning "feather", "wing", or "fin". A similar term is pectinate, which refers to a comb-like arrangement of parts...
or bipinnate with a single, free, basal segment on each of the basal pinnae. Pinnae articulate or continuous with the rachis
Rachis
Rachis is a biological term for a main axis or "shaft".-In zoology:In vertebrates a rachis can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this case the rachis usually form the supporting axis of the body and is then called the spine or vertebral column...
; terminal pinna conform (similar in size and shape to the lateral pinnae). Veins variously anastomosing
Anastomosis
An anastomosis is the reconnection of two streams that previously branched out, such as blood vessels or leaf veins. The term is used in medicine, biology, mycology and geology....
(not free); veinlets usually included in the areole
Areole
Areoles are an important diagnostic feature of cacti, and identify them as a family distinct from other succulent plants. The areoles on cacti are clearly visible; they generally appear as small light- to dark-colored bumps, out of which grow clusters of spines...
s. Sori
Sorus
A sorus is a cluster of sporangia .In fungi and lichens, the sorus is surrounded by an external layer. In some red algae it may take the form of a depression into the thallus....
acrostichoid (covering the entire abaxial surface of the leaf); Paraphyses
Paraphyses
Paraphyses are part of the fertile spore-bearing layer in certain fungi. More specifically, paraphyses are sterile filamentous hyphal end cells composing part of the hymenium of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota interspersed among either the asci or basidia respectively, and not sufficiently...
absent. Spore
Spore
In biology, a spore is a reproductive structure that is adapted for dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many bacteria, plants, algae, fungi and some protozoa. According to scientist Dr...
s monolete.
Comparative anatomy
No single character is known to distinguish Mickelia from BolbitisBolbitis
Bolbitis is a genus of ferns in family Elaphoglossaceae.Two particular members of the genus are often grown as immersed water plants in aquaria, B. heudelotii, and B. heteroclita. B. heudelotii, the African water fern, normally grows submerged in its native habitat, while B...
, but the rhizomes of five species of Mickelia have been examined and found to have ground tissue
Ground tissue
The types of ground tissue found in plants develop from ground tissue meristem and consists of three simple tissues:* Parenchyma...
that is greenish, instead of the whitish color found in most ferns. The greenish rhizome ground tissue might be a synapomorphy
Synapomorphy
In cladistics, a synapomorphy or synapomorphic character is a trait that is shared by two or more taxa and their most recent common ancestor, whose ancestor in turn does not possess the trait. A synapomorphy is thus an apomorphy visible in multiple taxa, where the trait in question originates in...
for Mickelia. Seven species of Mickelia are hemiepiphytes, whereas all of the Bolbitis species are terrestrial. The location of vegetative bud
Bud
In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of the stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately. Buds may be specialized to develop flowers or short shoots, or may have...
s, when present, is different in the two genera.
History
The genus Mickelia was erected in 2010, following a molecular phylogenetic studyResearch
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
of the bolbitidoid ferns, based on DNA sequence
DNA sequence
The sequence or primary structure of a nucleic acid is the composition of atoms that make up the nucleic acid and the chemical bonds that bond those atoms. Because nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, are unbranched polymers, this specification is equivalent to specifying the sequence of...
s of the chloroplast
Chloroplast
Chloroplasts are organelles found in plant cells and other eukaryotic organisms that conduct photosynthesis. Chloroplasts capture light energy to conserve free energy in the form of ATP and reduce NADP to NADPH through a complex set of processes called photosynthesis.Chloroplasts are green...
intergenic spacers trnL-F and rps4-trnS. Mickelia was named
Botanical name
A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants...
for the American
Americans
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
pteridologist John Thomas Mickel, who contributed much regarding Elaphoglossum, the closest relative
Biological classification
Biological classification, or scientific classification in biology, is a method to group and categorize organisms by biological type, such as genus or species. Biological classification is part of scientific taxonomy....
of Mickelia.
Six species of Mickelia had previously been in the genus Bolbitis. Mickelia pradoi and Mickelia furcata were first described in the paper that established Mickelia. Mickelia scandens was resurrected from Mickelia guianensis, which had previously been in Lomagramma because of its venation pattern. These two had been treated as a single species since the time when they were both in the genus Acrostichum
Acrostichum
Acrostichum was one of the original pteridophyte genera delineated by Linnaeus. It was originally drawn very broadly, including all ferns that had sori apparently "acrostichoid", or distributed in a solid mass across the back of the frond, rather than organized in discrete sori...
. For this reason, the most recent species name that had been applied to Mickelia scandens was Acrostichum scandens.
The species that had been in Bolbitis were described in a monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
of that genus in 1977. The mesoamerican species of Bolbitis were given an updated treatment in 1995 and detailed biogeographic information for these was published in 2004. Mickelia was first described in a synopsis
Synopsis
A synopsis is a brief summary of the major points of a written work, either as prose or as a table; an abridgment or condensation of a work.-See also:*Synopsys, an electronic design automation company based in Mountain View, California...
of the genus that did not repeat much of the information published in previous works
Treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject.-Noteworthy treatises:...
.
Phylogeny
The phylogenetic treePhylogenetic tree
A phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a branching diagram or "tree" showing the inferred evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities based upon similarities and differences in their physical and/or genetic characteristics...
below is based on one that was published in 2010. The positions
Clade
A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...
of Mickelia pradoi and Mickelia lindigii are based on morphology
Plant morphology
Plant morphology or phytomorphology is the study of the physical form and external structure of plants. This is usually considered distinct from plant anatomy, which is the study of the internal structure of plants, especially at the microscopic level...
only. Mickelia furcata and Mickelia pergamentacea are omitted because they have not been sampled
Sample (material)
In general, a sample is a limited quantity of something which is intended to be similar to and represent a larger amount of that thing. The things could be countable objects such as individual items available as units for sale, or a material not countable as individual items. Samples of countable...
for DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
and morphology does not clearly indicate their affinities
Plant taxonomy
Plant taxonomy is the science that finds, describes, classifies, identifies, and names plants. It thus is one of the main branches of taxonomy.Plant taxonomy is closely allied to plant systematics, and there is no sharp boundary between the two...
. Mickelia furcata is known from only one specimen
Specimen
A specimen is a portion/quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study.BiologyA laboratory specimen is an individual animal, part of an animal, a plant, part of a plant, or a microorganism, used as a representative to study the properties of the whole population of that species or...
collected
Plant collecting
Plant collecting involves procuring live or dried plant specimens, for the purposes of research, cultivation or as a hobby.-Collection of live specimens:...
in 1985 and lacking fertile fronds.