STUDIES ON THE SPORE MORPHOLOGY OF PTERIDOPHYTES FROM KOLLI HILLS, EASTERN GHATS, TAMIL NADU, INDIA – P. Vijayakanth and S. Sahaya Sathish 2016 Vol. 4 (Issue 1) Page 1 Journal home page: www.ijreb.org STUDIES ON THE SPORE MORPHOLOGY OF PTERIDOPHYTES FROM KOLLI HILLS, EASTERN GHATS, TAMIL NADU, INDIA P. Vijayakanth and S. Sahaya Sathish Centre for Cryptogamic Studies (CCS), Department of Botany, St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli-620 002, Tamil Nadu, India ABSTRACT The morphological characters of the spores were studied. The size, shape, colour and surface pattern of spores were analysed. The spore is two different types as observed such as advanced spores (monolete) and primitive spores (trilete). The spore size ranges from 24 to 300 µ. Selaginella radicata megaspore was the largest one with the size of 289 × 300 µ. Granulose were found in maximum of the spores surface. The remaining spores observed were showing different surface patterns such as reticulate, verrucate, psilate, gemmate, rugulate, cristate, echinate and tuberculate. Asplenium genus’ spore types, sizes, shape, colours were same but a surface is different such as reticulate, rugulate, ornate and cristate. In the present investigation the perine structures were also studied. Among 43 species studied, most of the species were primitive with trilete - non - perinous spores. The spores of 12 species were with the most advanced structure of monolete visible perine. The species were less common in the study area. KEYWORDS: Kolli Hills, perine, Pteridophyte, spore morphology. INTRODUCTION The Kolli Hills are part of the Eastern Ghats, which is a mountain range that runs almost parallel to the east coast of Tamil Nadu. Kolli Hills are located in Namakkal district of Tamil Nadu. It extends to an area of about 418 Km 2 between 11 0 10’-11 0 30’ latitude and 78 0 15’-78 0 30’ E longitude. Its elevation ranges from 700-1000m. (Fig.1) The vegetation is prominently dry deciduous with patches of moist deciduous and semi-evergreen forests. Foot hills have dry deciduous shrub forests. A survey of literature shows that these hills are rich in the diversity of plants including the angiosperm to the lower group such as pteridophytes, bryophytes, lichens, fungi and algae. But the works carried out with the lower group of plants are very limited. The pteridophytes occur in abundance in the tropical, subtropical and moist deciduous forest ISSN 2321-743X International Journal of Research in Engineering and Bioscience Volume 4 Issue 1 (Pages 01- 12) IJREB