Aquatic plant with no flowers or bulbs, sporangia present
Plant body various, leaves various, plant free-floating, emergent, or submersed
Plant raft-like, free-floating on water surface or stranded along shore or in drying bottom sediments, breaking apart into individuals or small clumps
Plant body differentiated into a short, often branched stem with small, minutely velvety-papillate, scale-like leaves
Leaves 0.5–1.5 mm, alternate [each with a thick green or ± red-tinged floating lobe and a thin, colorless submersed lobe]; upper surface of floating lobe papillate or with short, inconspicuous hairs [Azollaceae]
Stems forming round to elongate plants to 3 cm, 2 cm wide; leaves ovate or oblong-ovate, generally 1.2–2 mm, 1 mm wide; leaf margins of upper (± green or ± red) leaf lobes with broad ± white band of cells >= 4 cells wide; male spore mass barbs lacking partitions
DESCRIPTION
Annual Fern, California Native, usually found in ponds and slow streams. Small free floating fern on mud/water roots. Green to +- red. with white margins ,round to elongate plants to 3 cm, 2 cm wide.
Roots Rhizome: roots hang in water, form dense clump
Leaf: small overlapping scale like leaves cover stem, leaf has sublte papillae, green-red
Sporangium Case: clear yellowish orb, female with distinct equatorial girdle, wall tubercled and pitted. male spores mass barbs lacking partition
Fun facts: Used as green manure in rice paddies because of nitrogen-fixing algae (cyanobacterium Ananbaena Azollae) in upper leaf lobe. Made fossil fuels and can double it mass in 3 day
