Marsilea species

Marsilea species;
 
M. quadrifolia does NOT occur in India (apart from some cultures in Universities etc.) – it is mainly a European species, as has been known now since two or three decades. It is distinguished quite easily by the sorocarps arising from a short way up the leaf pedicel, not in the axil where the pedicell meets the basal stem as in Indian species. All the reports from India, Pakistan etc., which basicly go back to 19th Century alpha-taxonomy, turned out on investigation to be either sterile plants – which are unidentifiable – or mistakes.

The usual mistake is for the very widespread and common Indian species, M. minuta (syn.: M. crenata), with the sorocarps arising at the axil. There are two other species in peninsular India, and any number of forms of M. minuta have been described, sometimes as species. 
 
 
 
 

 

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pepperwort, water clover.
 
round stem, hairy, 4 leaflets, partially submerged or terrestrial, margin entire (in young leaves)
 
Photo date: 09 Jun 2009
Habitat Irrigation stream.
Hampapura village, Mysore dist

Are you sure that the plants in the first 2 pictures are same to that of the 3rd picture?

The third one I guess, is Oxalis sp. of Oxalidaceae family. Any information available on flower?

all pictures are of Marsilea sp. even the 3rd one…

Yes I agree with …

can it be Marsilea drummondii ?

Yes Marselia sp. of Marsileaceae family not Oxalis.

It seems to be Marsilea sps.

For a proper identification of Marsilea species one has to study the sporocarp, its surface, attachment, number etc. The laeflets (pinnules) are too plastic and variable in cutting, size and shape to be of much importance in identifying a species properly. These features can vary with the habitat also. This is borne out by the fact that people have tried to identify the picture and suggested different names. One can refer to the monograph on Marsilea by K M Gupta 1962 (CSIR Publication), or the views expressed by C R Fraser-Jenkins in his publications (Syndrome) 1996 and 300species in 2009.

I’m afraid this is yet another photo that is unidentifiable as the people submitting photos do not know what features are required to see. This has applied to nearly every photo in this forum so far. Yet there is plenty of literature available to tell people what features to look at – but they don’t bother to look for and read it.
No Marsilea species in Asia can be identified merely from the leaves, which are well known to vary enormously depending on their situation (in water versus on land). One has to see the shape of the sorocarps, which occur in the plants on land.


The common species throughout India is M. minuta (many synonyms described from India), often in the past mistakenly confused with the European M. quadrifolia (not present in India), but with sorocarps borne in the axil of the basal runner and the leaf stalk (in M. quadrifolia trhey are a little up on the leaf-stalk base). I cannot imagine where the idea of the Australian endemic M. drummondii (which has densely hairy leaves etc.) came from. In South India also M. aegyptiaca occurs, but again one must see the sorocarps.
The chances are highest that this is just M. minuta (it does not say where from?), but it cannot be positively recognised from sterile leaves.

More interesting is the small red floating plant with it. Its radiate growth pattern, not pinnate-triangular, shows that it is Azolla filiculoides, not the native A. pinnata subsp. asiatica. A. filiculoides is also present throughout India as a widespread adventive species from Europe, usually introduced and escaped into rice fields, but is much overlooked as it was not reported in earlier literature – and is frequently misreported as being A. pinnata. The two are actually quite easy to distinguish from the growth pattern of plants.

 

 

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(050509SCS3-4) Oxalis species ? Growing in water? :  Attachments (3). 6 posts by 4 authors. 

Is it some species of Oxalis? Growing in water?
Without flowers, I cannot ID this, but there is some bright spot in the centre.
Sonepat, Haryana on 2nd May 09.

this one is again a gugly for you.
dear it is not oxalis but Marselia sp. (a pteridophyte not an angiosperm). it doesnt bear flower but sporocarps.

This is a Marsilea sp. Perhaps M. quadrifolia. An aquatic fern. Often taken as a vegetable. A non-flowering plant produces sporocarp.

Well it sometimes takes a long time for later research work to become generally known. First M. quadrifolia does NOT occur in India (apart from some cultures in Universities etc.) – it is mainly a European species, as has been known now since two or three decades. It is distinguished quite easily by the sorocarps arising from a short way up the leaf pedicel, not in the axil where the pedicell meets the basal stem as in Indian species.

All the reports from India, Pakistan etc., which basicly go back to 19th Century alpha-taxonomy, turned out on investigation to be either sterile plants – which are unidentifiable – or mistakes.
The usual mistake is for the very widespread and common Indian species, M. minuta (syn.: M. crenata), with the sorocarps arising at the axil. There are two other species in peninsular India, and any number of forms of M. minuta have been described, sometimes as species.

 

 
 
 

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