400 Milion Years Age Plant Found
A plant that has its origin nearly 400 million years ago has been spotted in the Bharathiar University campus. Psillotum nudum, considered one of the oldest known vascular plants was found growing in a ditch facing the Department of Environmental Sciences in the university. It belongs to the family Psilotaceae, division Psilopsida. V.S. Ramachandran, Reader, Department of Botany, chanced upon the plant on one of his weekly jaunts at the university. “I check on the plants and trees in the university once a week, because they are listed and the growth progress has to be noted. I accidentally noticed the plant in the ditch and brought a small cutting for study. Only then I realised that it was the oldest living plant on the earth. Many of its counterparts are in the form of fossils. I alerted my students and now we are working towards its conservation.”It measures around 30 to 45 cms and is a Pteridophyte.
The faculty members of the department have been working on the collection, cataloguing and documentation of the flora found in the university, since it bordered the Western Ghats. The discovery of the rare plant has caused a lot of scientific curiosity among the faculty as well as the students of the department. “This plant is near extinction. It usually grows on the trunks of forest trees. The only remote chance of it being found here is through physical transfer. Somebody could have carried the seed of this plant along with some other plant or seed from the forest”, Mr. Ramachandran says.
The plant body is less differentiated, roots are absent, only dichotomously branched rhizome is present. Aerial plant body is either naked or have small spirally arranged leaves. The plant is ideally suited for temperate climate. So the faculty and students have decided to go in for tissue culture. However, it has no medicinal value; neither can it be used as feed for cattle.
