Podostemaceae, An Enigmatic Family

• Post by: Bubul Bharali
• July 10, 2017
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ABSTRACT

The Podostemaceae are of great morphological and embryological interests because of their great biodiversity in a particular habitat. Kapil (1970b) reported Podostemaceae as an “embryological family” because of several remarkable features such as (a) diverse pattern of female gametophyte development; (b) lack of antipodal cells; (c) absence of double fertilization and endosperm; (d) presence of pseudo embryosac; (e) lack of plumule and radicle in mature embryo, etc. These characters not only make the Podostemads markedly distinct from other angiosperms, but also biologically interesting and evolutionarily enigmatic.