Name: Salviniaceae
Meaning of Name:
Salviniaceae, after Anton Maria Salvini (1653–1729), an Italian naturalist and linguist noted for his translations of Latin, Greek and Hebrew texts + Latin -āceae (the feminine plural of -āceus, ‘resembling’, a suffix used to form the taxonomic family names of plants, algae, bacteria, and fungi)
Common Names:
None
Botanical Information:
Salviniaceae is a small aquatic fern family with just twenty species across the only two genera Azolla and Salvinia.
Two defining botanical characteristics of Salviniaceae, but not unique to this family, is that all species in this family are aquatic, and all are heterosporous. Heterospory is the production of spore of two sexes and two sizes. The male spores, called microspores, are the smaller, and the female spores, called megaspores, are the larger.
The photo chosen to illustrate this family shows a dense mat of the aquatic, floating, fern Azolla pinnata.
Image copyright © Optimate Group Pty Ltd
