Log In New Account Sitemap
  • Home
  • Specimen Search
    • Search Collections
    • Map Search
    • Exsiccati Search
  • Images
    • Image Browser
    • Search Images
  • Flora Projects
    • Arizona
    • New Mexico
    • Colorado Plateau
    • Plant Atlas of Arizona (PAPAZ)
    • Sonoran Desert
    • Teaching Checklists
  • Agency Floras
    • NPS - Intermountain
    • USFWS - Region 2
    • USFS - Southwestern Region
    • BLM Flora
    • Coronado NF
    • Tonto NF
  • Dynamic Floras
    • Dynamic Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Additional Websites
    • New Mexico Flores
    • Plant Atlas Project of Arizona (PAPAZ)
    • Southwest Colorado Wildflowers
    • Vascular Plants of the Gila Wilderness
    • Consortium of Midwest Herbaria
    • Consortium of Southern Rocky Mountain Herbaria
    • Intermountain Region Herbaria Network (IRHN)
    • Mid-Atlantic Herbaria
    • North American Network of Small Herbaria (NANSH)
    • Northern Great Plains Herbaria
    • Red de Herbarios del Noroeste de México (northern Mexico)
    • SERNEC - Southeastern USA
    • Texas Oklahoma Regional Consortium of Herbaria (TORCH)
  • Resources
    • Symbiota Docs
    • Video Tutorials
    • Collections in SEINet
    • Joining a Portal
Selaginellaceae
Selaginellaceae image
Anthony Baniaga
  • FNA
  • VPAP
  • Resources
Spike-moss family
Iván A. Valdespino in Flora of North America (vol. 2)
Plants herbaceous, annual or perennial, sometimes remaining green over winter. Stems leafy, branching dichotomously, regularly or irregularly forked or branched, protostelic (sometimes with many protosteles or meristeles), siphonostelic, or actino-plectostelic. Rhizophores (modified leafless shoots producing roots) present or absent, geotropic, borne on stems at branch forks, throughout, or confined to base of stems. Leaves on 1 plant dimorphic or monomorphic, small, with adaxial ligule near base, single-veined [rarely veins forked]. Strobili (clusters of overlapping sporophylls) sometimes ill-defined, terminal [lateral], cylindric, quadrangular, or flattened. Sporophylls (fertile leaves) monomorphic or adjacently different, slightly or highly differentiated from vegetative (sterile) leaves. Sporangia short-stalked, solitary in axil of sporophylls, opening by distal slits. Spores of 2 types (plants heterosporous), megaspores (1--2--)4, large, microspores numerous (hundreds), minute. Selaginellaceae traditionally include only one genus of living plants, Selaginella (A. C. Jermy 1990b; R. M. Tryon and A. F. Tryon 1982). Some authors (O. Kuntze 1891--1898, vol. 2, pp. 824--827; W. Rothmaler 1944), however, have segregated other genera based on generic concepts established by A. Palisot de Beauvois (1805, pp. 95--114), who recognized four genera. A. F. Spring (1850) combined the four genera into the broadly defined genus Selaginella . Spring's generic delimitation has resulted in misinterpretations that created many nomenclatural problems and partly led to the continued recognition of only one genus. Nevertheless, species in Selaginella fall into at least three well-defined groups, all present in North America, that may be recognized as genera based on anatomy, embryology, morphology and arrangement of the leaves and sporophylls, and morphology and symmetry of the strobilus. North American Selaginellaceae, which represent only a small portion of the family, are treated here in Selaginella , pending a full revision of the family worldwide. Species in the fossil genus Selaginellites Zeller, which dates to the Carboniferous period, presumably are congeneric with Selaginella . Among the fern allies, Selaginellaceae are related only distantly to the other lycopod families, Lycopodiaceae and Isoëtaceae (R. M. Tryon and A. F. Tryon 1982).

CANOTIA 5(1)
PLANT: Perennial herbs in ours with often dichotomously branched stems. ROOTS: adventitious, short, produced from near the tips of modified leafless root-like stems (rhizophores), branched or more commonly unbranched. LEAVES: variously arranged, scale-like, with the venation restricted to a midvein. SPORANGIA: of two types, kidney-shaped to depressed-ovoid, positioned on the adaxial base of leaf-like sporophylls, arranged in strobili terminal on the branches. MEGASPORANGIA: with usually 4 megaspores, these relatively large, trilete, tetrahedral-globose. MICROSPORANGIA: with numerous microspores, these minute, trilete, tetrahedralglobose. GAMETOPHYTES: reduced, developing mostly inside the spores, the archegonia and antheridia protruding from the spore wall. NOTES: 1 genus, 700-750 spp., nearly worldwide. REFERENCES: Yatskievych, G. and M. D. Windham. 2009. Vascular Plants of Arizona: Selaginellaceae. CANOTIA 5 (1): 39-48.
Show all taxa || << 1 - 50 taxa >>
Bryodesma acanthonota
Image of Bryodesma acanthonota
Selaginella acutifolia
Image of Selaginella acutifolia
Selaginella adunca
Images
not available
Selaginella aenea
Image of Selaginella aenea
Selaginella aitchisonii
Images
not available
Selaginella albomarginata
Image of Selaginella albomarginata
Selaginella albonitens
Image of Selaginella albonitens
Selaginella alligans
Image of Selaginella alligans
Selaginella alopecuroides
Image of Selaginella alopecuroides
Selaginella alutacea
Image of Selaginella alutacea
Selaginella amazonica
Image of Selaginella amazonica
Selaginella amblyphylla
Image of Selaginella amblyphylla
Selaginella anaclasta
Image of Selaginella anaclasta
Selaginella anceps
Image of Selaginella anceps
Selaginella apoda
Image of Selaginella apoda
Selaginella apoensis
Images
not available
Selaginella applanata
Image of Selaginella applanata
Selaginella apus
Image of Selaginella apus
Selaginella arbuscula
Image of Selaginella arbuscula
Selaginella arbusculoides
Image of Selaginella arbusculoides
Selaginella arenaria
Image of Selaginella arenaria
Selaginella arenicola
Image of Selaginella arenicola
Selaginella argentea
Image of Selaginella argentea
Selaginella aristata
Image of Selaginella aristata
Selaginella arizonica
Image of Selaginella arizonica
Selaginella armata
Image of Selaginella armata
Selaginella arsenei
Image of Selaginella arsenei
Selaginella arsiclada
Image of Selaginella arsiclada
Selaginella arthritica
Image of Selaginella arthritica
Selaginella articulata
Image of Selaginella articulata
Selaginella asperula
Image of Selaginella asperula
Selaginella asplundii
Image of Selaginella asplundii
Selaginella asprella
Image of Selaginella asprella
Selaginella atirrensis
Image of Selaginella atirrensis
Selaginella auriculata
Image of Selaginella auriculata
Selaginella australiensis
Image of Selaginella australiensis
Selaginella banksii
Image of Selaginella banksii
Selaginella barnebyana
Image of Selaginella barnebyana
Selaginella basipilosa
Image of Selaginella basipilosa
Selaginella bemarahensis
Image of Selaginella bemarahensis
Selaginella bernoullii
Images
not available
Selaginella biformis
Image of Selaginella biformis
Selaginella bigelovii
Image of Selaginella bigelovii
Selaginella binervis
Image of Selaginella binervis
Selaginella bisulcata
Image of Selaginella bisulcata
Selaginella bluuensis
Image of Selaginella bluuensis
Selaginella bodinieri
Image of Selaginella bodinieri
Selaginella bolanderi
Image of Selaginella bolanderi
Selaginella bombycina
Image of Selaginella bombycina
Selaginella boninensis
Image of Selaginella boninensis
The National Science Foundation
Development supported by National Science Foundation Grants (DBI 9983132, BRC 0237418, DBI 0743827, DBI 0847966)
Powered by Symbiota