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Christensenia is a small genus of tropical ferns in the Marattiaceae family, native to the Indo-Malayan region. It needs consistently humid conditions, since its stomata stay permanently open.
Christensenia is a genus of ferns in the botanical family Marattiaceae. The genus is confined to the Indo-Malayan region. The basal chromosome number for this genus is 2n=80.
Christensenia is unique in the Marattiaceae, because of its reticulate venation, palmately arranged leaves and radial synangia. Christensenia produces enormous amounts of spores, up to 7,000 spores per sporangium. The radial synangium is very similar to some of the fossil Asterothecaceae/Psaroniaceae, such as Scolecopteris. Christensenia itself has no fossil record. Christensenia is notable for having the largest known stomata of any land plant, and a stomatal structure that is permanently open, restricting the genus to high-humidity environments.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Christensenia (plant) by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
