The gametophytic tissue of hornworts is rich in polysaccharides (Renzaglia et al., 2009) and it also seems to be rich in polyphenolics. Both compounds pose a problem for DNA. A modified CTAB protocol was found to be optimal for hornwort genomic DNA extraction (adapted from Porebski et al. 1997). This protocol uses polyvinyl pyrrolidone to remove polyphenolics and contains an extra ethanol precipitation step with a relatively high NaCl concentration compared standard DNA extraction protocols. At NaCl concentrations higher than 0.5 M,polysaccharides remain in solution and they do not co-precipitate with DNA.