Salvinia

Plant Characteristics

Origin:	✈	?

Cultivation

Exposure:	☼	?"?" is not in the list (sun, part-sun, shade, unknown) of allowed values for the "Exposure" property.
Water:	◍	?"?" is not in the list (wet, moist, moderate, dry, less when dormant) of allowed values for the "Water" property.

Scientific Names

Read about Salvinia in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Salvinia (Antonio Maria Salvini, 1633-1729, Italian scientist). Marsiliaceae. An interesting plant for the small home aquarium. Salvinia is a genus of fern-allies found mostly in the tropics and comprising about a dozen species, only one of which, S. natans, Linn. (Fig. 3540), is cultivated. Plants floating, with slender sts. bearing apparently 2-ranked, oblong lvs. 4-6 lines or even 1 in. long: upper surface of lvs. covered with papillae or minute warts; lower densely matted with brown pellucid hairs. The plant is supposed to have no true roots. What look like roots are believed to be finely dissected lvs.; one of these occurs with each pair of the foliage-lvs. Many aquatic plants have these 2 types of foliage, e. g., the water buttercup, Ranunculus aquatilis. Salvinia looks much like a flowering plant but it is a spore plant and has 2 kinds of spores, large ones and minute ones. These spores are produced in small oval bodies known as sporocarps, i.e. "spore-fruits." Of each cluster of sporocarps, 1 or 2 contain 10 or more sessile macrosporangia, each of which contains a solitary macrospore. The other sporocarps in the cluster contain numerous microsporangia, each of which contains numerous microspores. The plant is of easy culture in summer, but many persons have lost it over winter by not understanding its habits. It is an annual and often dies in the winter after ripening a crop of spores. Secure a broad pan, fill it half full of loam and then fill the pan with water. After the water has cleared place the salvinias on the surface. In the winter watch for the formation of the spore-capsules. These grow in masses near the top of the clusters of root-like leaves. After the plants die the spore-capsules will remain in the soil. The plant often passes the winter in greenhouses in a growing condition, producing no spores. CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Cultivation

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Propagation

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Pests and diseases

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Gallery

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

External links

• w:Salvinia. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Salvinia QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)