''Ephedra antisyphilitica'' is a plant species native to the southern

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

of the

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(

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New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

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), and also to northeastern

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).Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
/ref> This species should not be confused with the 1871 name ''Ephedra antisyphilitica'' S.Wats., native to farther west in the Southwestern US and in

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

. Meyer's use of the name dates from 1846, so it has priority over Watson's later application of the same name to a different plant. Watson's plant is now called ''

Ephedra nevadensis ''Ephedra nevadensis'', commonly known as Nevada ephedra, gray ephedra, Mormon tea and Nevada jointfir, is a species of gymnosperm native to dry areas of western North America. Its range extends west to California and Oregon, east to Texas, and ...

.''Tropicos, search for ''Ephedra antisyphilitica''
/ref>

Genome size

The 1C

genome size Genome size is the total amount of DNA contained within one copy of a single complete genome. It is typically measured in terms of mass in picograms (trillionths (10−12) of a gram, abbreviated pg) or less frequently in daltons, or as the total ...

of ''Ephedra antisyphilitica'' has been estimated at 38.34 pg, which is the largest genome reported for any

gymnosperm The gymnosperms ( lit. revealed seeds) are a group of seed-producing plants that includes conifers, cycads, ''Ginkgo'', and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae. The term ''gymnosperm'' comes from the composite word in el, γυμνό� ...

, although as the species is

octoploid Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than one pair of ( homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes, where each set contains ...

the monoploid (1Cx) genome is only 9.58pg.

References

antisyphilitica Flora of the Southern United States Flora of Northeastern Mexico Plants described in 1846 {{gymnosperm-stub