MARSILEACEAE [FIRST DRAFT]
苹科 ping ke
Lin You-xin (林尤興)
Small ferns usually growing in shallow silt or wet land. Rhizomes slender and creeping with siphonostele and covered with short hairs. Sterile leave singl liear, or with 2-4 obtriangular leaflets, attached at top of stipe, fraoting on water surface or extending out of water. Veins forked, connecting into elongate areolae at ends; fortile leave forming into shpaeropteroid, or elliptic sphaeropteroid sporocarp, stipitate or sessile, narmally closed to rhizome, attached at stipe base or rhizome near stipe base, 2 to numbers sporagia in one sporocarp. Sporangium dimorphic,i.e. megasporangium and microsporangium. One big spore in a megasporangium and numbers small spores in a microsporangium.
3 genera, ca. 75 spices, most in Oceania, S. Africa and S. America. 1 genus in China.
1. MARSILEA L., Sp. pl. 2: 1099. 1757.
苹属 ping shu
Lemma (Juss.) Adans.; Zalusianskya Necker; Speroidea Dulak
Growing in shallow water. Rhizomes divided into dorsal and vental, bearing with root and leave at node..Sterile leave approached or remote, stipe slender and softly weak when in submereged, short and strongly erect when in wet land. Leave with 4 obtriangulr leaflets, attached at top of stipe, floating or erect. Veination distinct, dichotomous and anastomosis at margin. Sporocarp spaeropteroid or elliptic-renifom, exine hard, bilabiate when openning. Sporangium linear or elliptic-terete, arranged in two rows attached at receptacle, less megasporangia and numbers of microsporangia in each sporocarp; one big spore only in each magasporangium and numbers of small spores in each microsporangium. Sporangium exannulus. Big spore ovate-round and with irregularly reticulate on perine; small spore rotund, with distict perines. Base number of chromosome X = 10.
About 70 spicies. Spreading all world, most in Oceania and S. Africa, 3 spices in China.
1a. Sporocarps usually double attached slightly above positions nearly bases of stipes; leaveflet unundualely crenature at above margins---------------------------------------------1. M. qudrifolia
1b. Sporocarp usually with stipe attached togther at rhizomel node, single; leaveflet undulatly crenate at above margin.
2a. Sporocarp elliphtic, both laeral sides raised, wall of sporocarp dark-brown, soft-coriaceous, woody and hard; leaveflet usually undulately crenate at above margin-----------2. M. crenata
2b. Sporocarp subsquare, both lateral sides retuse, wall of sporocarp yellowish, soft-woody; leveflet smooth on above margin----------------------------------------------------3. M. aegiptica
1. Marsilea quadrifolia L. Sp. pl. 2: 1099. 1753.
苹 ping
Plants 5-20 cm. tall. Rhizomes slender and creeping, branched, with brownish hairs at apex., nodes remote and bearing several leaves. Stipes 5-20 cm long; leaves with 4 triangular leaflets, crossed-shaped, 1 X 2.5 cm, out-margins semi-rounded, bases cuneate, entire, covered with hairs when young, herbaceous. Veination ratiately forked from base to up in leaflets and forming into elongat arealae, non including vein. Sporocarp single or double born at short stipes that attached at bases of stipes of leaves, long-elliptic, deeply bown, woody and hard and covered with hairs when young. numbers sprangia in each sporocarp, megasporangium and micrpsporangium attached together at same receptacle, a megasporagium contained one big spore and a microsporangium contained majority of microspores.
In rice fields and along ditches and ponds; South provinces and region of yangtze-rever, noth reached to N. China and Liaoning, west to Xinjiang. In tropic and temperate zone.
Whole plants are used forage and as medicine against inframmations for promote diuresis to reduce edema; applied extenally for snake bites and injury of skin.
2. Marsilea crenata C. Presl, Rel. Haenk. 1: 84. pl. 12, f. 13. 1825.
南国田字草 nan guo tian zi cao
Outline of this species in different season varied as following;; in summer plants growing in deep water, leaflets floating on water surface, stipes up to 30 cm long; but growing in shallow water, stipes 8-10 cm long only and erect in water, leaflets 20 mm long only, entire or crenate or lobete at above margin, rhizomes internodes 6-9 cm.long. In winter time, the plants growing in dry fields and much small, rhizome internodes 2-4 mm long only, stipes 2-8 cm long, leaflets 5-10 mm long. Stalks of sporocarp 5 mm long, usually 1-2 or sevarel sporocaprs attached togather at stalks near bases of stipes. Sporocarp elliphic, haired, with two teeth-like prodruding on above position of jointed with stalked.
In rice fields or ditches and ponds; Fujian and Taiwan [Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines].
3. Marsilea aegyptica Wild. Sp. 5: 540. 1810.
埃及苹 ai ji ping
Plants 5-10 cm tall. Rhizomes short or slender and creeping, with short internodes. Leaves clustered or remote; stipes 5-10 cm long, slender and straminous; leaflets triangular, ca 1 X 0.5 cm, entire and herbaceous. Veins reached margins and with elongate arealae. Several sporocarps clustered at stalks on nodes near stipes of leaves, stalks ca 8 mm long, outlines of sporocarps subsquare, retuse on both lateral sides, with a break-like at above position of jointed with stalk, brown and softly coriaceous.
In reed marsh by lakes; Xinjiang (aletai).( African and Russia)