Giant Salvinia

Description

Salvinia herzogii de la Sota has 63 chromosomes, and is considered a heptaloid. The first meiotic divisions show irregular pairing of chromosomes, univalents, bivalents and multivalents. Older microsporangia are either empty or contain massulae and spores of variable size. Salvinia herzogii cannot be considered, as has been suggested, to be a parent of S. molesta Mitchell which has 45 chromosomes (pentaploid), but like S. molesta, it also seems to be a hybrid.