English: Pepperwort family; Water-clover family.
Clades:
Marsileales;
Marsileidae;
Polypodianae;
Pteridophyta;
Plants.
Genera: Marsilea, ± 55 species; Pilularia, 6 species, Regnellidium, 1 species.
Region: worldwide; warm-temperate and tropical.
Habitat: aquatic or semi-aquatic; in mud, along the shores of ponds or streams, submerged in shallow water; seasonally wet habitats; survive the winter or dry season by losing their leaves and producing hard, desiccation-resistant reproductive structures.
Use: pools, aquaria; porridge of pulverized sporocarps.
Plant theoryIn the
Plant theory Marsileaceae is split of from
Salviniales and placed in the class
Polypodianae. It is as an aquatic placed in the Hydrogen class and in subphase 1.
BotanyFern; heterosporous; aquatic and semi-aquatic.
Root: long, slender rhizomes, creeping along or beneath the ground.
Leaves: in distinct clusters; at nodes along the rhizome, with wide spacing between leaf clusters; stalk long slender, ending in four leaflets; deciduous, in winter, or the dry season; vegetative, sterile leaflets, and fertile, spore-producing, leaflets.
Roots: grow from the rhizome.
Stem: vessels in the rhizome.
Sorophore: sorus-bearing structure, unique to the
Marsileaceae, abel to extend ten times the length of the sporocarp, carrying the numerous spore-producing sori.
Sori: heterosporous; consists of several sporangia; covered by a thin hood, the indusium; two types of sporangium, each producing only one kind of spores.
Spores: hairy, short-stalked, bean-shaped; 3 to 8 mm in diameter; with hard covering, tough, resistant to drying out; sporocarps, modified leaflets, open readily in favourable conditions, fertile after more than 130 years.
Stages Remedies1
Marsilea drummondii1
Marsilea quadrifolia1
Regnellidium diphyllumx
Pilularia globulifera