A chromatographic and cytological study of Dryopteris dilatata in eastern North America

Abstract

The phloroglucinol derivatives found in the rhizomes of Dryopteris intermedia Gray, diploid D. "dilatata", and D. campyloptera Clarkson, all from eastern North America, are compared and contrasted with those found in D. assimilis S. Walker, D. dilatata A. Gray, and D. spinulosa Watt from Europe, as well as diploid D. “dilatata” from Alaska. The presence or absence, and the morphology, of internal secreting hairs in these species was useful for comparing taxa and suggesting evolutionary patterns. Chromatographic analysis gives many more categories or finer divisions of D. dilatata s.l. than does genome analysis, which has suggested that D. assimilis, D. intermedia, and western D. “dilatata” represent the same ancestral genome.