DNA exposes ferns in international plant trade
June 1, 2010 by Susie · Leave a Comment
AMERICAN scientists have used DNA to identify fake ferns.
DNA testing of garden ferns sold at some American plant nurseries has found that plants marketed as American natives may actually be exotic species from other parts of the globe.
The finding relied on a new technique called “DNA barcoding” that uses small snippets of DNA to distinguish between species, in much the same way that a supermarket scanner uses the black lines in a barcode to identify cans of soup or boxes of cereal.
A team of North Carolina researchers suspected a fern might not be what the labels said it was.
When they pasted the DNA sequence of three of the plant’s genes into an online database, they discovered that what had been labeled as Wright’s lip fern (Cheilanthes wrightii), an American native popular in rock gardens and xeriscapes, was in fact a bristle cloak fern (C. distans), a relative from Australia.
