Marsilea minuta L.

 
  • Family (Christenhusz et al, 2011) : MARSILEACEAE
  • Family (As per The Plant List) : Marsileaceae
  • Species : Marsilea minuta
  • Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Marsilea minuta L.
  • Collection Nos : KFP 126
  • Collector(s) Name : C. J. Saldanha
  • Key identification features : Rhizome long, creeping, branched, subterranean, about 30 cm long, upto 2 mm thick, green in aquatic plants, pale or dark brown in terrestrials, overed by whitish, soft, slender hairs sparsely or densely all over; roots borne usually on nodes. Stipes scattered, about 1 m apart, usually green, glabrous or with few hairs as in rhizome. Leaves four, sessile, arranged at the tip of the stipe in clover leaf model, obovate or wedge-shaped; veins distinct above and below, flabellately branched; leaves pale or dark green, glabrous with few hairs; texture thin, soft herbaceous. Sporocarps borne at the nodes in clusters alternately, five per cluster; sporocarps adnate to the peduncle laterally and perpendicularly, more or less bean shaped, black or dark brown, very hard, densely hairy when young; microsporangia and megasporangia enclosed in same sporocarp and covered by gelatinous layer; microspores yellowish-brown, globose; megaspores ovate.
  • Habit : Herb-Aquatic
  • Native : Tropical Asia; Brazil; Caribbean Islands
  • Comments : Very common in ponds, paddy fields and marshy places and damp soil. According to Gupta (1962) M.brachycarpa A.Br. Monat. and M.gracilanata A.Br.Monat. occur in Karnataka. The former species has been recorded from Bangalore while the latter from Kemmangundi. The specimens of these species were neither collected nor located in any herbaria in India by Rajagopal & Bhat. These species are, therefore, either extinct or very rare in Karnataka.
  • Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
  • Collection Locality : Bangalore
  • Distribution Locality : Bangalore; Dakshina Kannada; Hassan; Mysore; Tumkur
  • Floras referred : Fraser-Jenkins, Taxonomic revision of Indian Subcontinental Pteridophytes 2008; Rajagopal & Bhat, Pteridophytic flora of Karnataka State- 1998

Description

Herbarium Specimen(s)

Field Images

Comments

All fields are required







 
Creative Commons License
Digital Flora of Karnataka by Herbarium JCB is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://flora-peninsula-indica.ces.iisc.ac.in/karnataka/.