We are redoing the labeling of our greenhouse collection of Selaginellas after many years of tags being swapped between pots, misplaced or lost.
Selaginella is a very dificult genus to idetificate. In the case of American species You have Flora Mesoamericana (Moran & Riba) (on web, http://www.mobot.org/mobot/fm/). In the case of other tropical species I have no information.
Really, the last general monograph was made by Baker in 1883-1887! The last general work (without keys, but with descriptions of the subgenera and with bibliography) is "Jermy AC. 1990. Selaginellaceae. In: Kubitzki K, editor. The families and genera of vascular plants, vol. 1. Kramer KU, Green PS, editors. Pteridophytes and Gymnosperms. Berlin: Springer. pp 39-45." - If you have an idea of the provenance of your plants, you could use local floras (see bibliography in the work cited above).
Most of the information is scattered in floras, but you might start with the labels you have and thenlook for information on those names. Some of the most recent literature is:
Alston, A. H. G., (1932). Selaginellaceae. In C. Christensen, The Pteridophyta of Madagascar. Dansk Bot. Ark. 7: 193-200 + 3 plates.
(1952).. A revision of West Indian species of Selaginella. Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist) Bot. 1: 25 - 47.
1955. The heterophyllous Selaginellae of Continental North America. Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) Bot. 1:219-274.
Bizzarri, M. P., (1975). Adumbratio Florae Aethiopicae - 27. Selaginellaceae. Webbia 29: 545-593.
(1981). Two new species of Selaginella (Pteridophyta) from Tropical Africa. Bull. Jard. Bot. Nat. Belg. 51: 219-224.
(1983). Two new species of Selaginella (Selaginellaceae) from Zaire. Bull. Jard. Bot. Nat. Belg. 53: 171-176.
Crabbe, J. A. & Jermy, A. C, (1973). Seven new species of Selaginella from Tropical South America. Am. Fern J. 63: 135-144.
& (1976). Six new species of Selginella from Tropical South Am. Fern Gaz. 11: 255-262.
Jermy, A. C, (1970). In Schelpe, E. A. C. L. E. Flora Zambesiaca, Pteridophyta. Exell and Launert (Ed.). Crown Agents for Oversea Government's and Administration, London.
Jones, K., & Colden, C., 1967. Cytomorphological variation in Selaginella. Jour. Linn. Soc. Bot. 60: 147-158.
TRYON, R. M. Jr. & TRYON, A. F., 1981. Ferns and Allied plants. With special reference to Tropical America.Selaginellaceae; Springer-Verlag. New York. 813-825.
I am planning to publish on Selaginellas from Madagascar soon (ex PhD student;s work)
All of the information presented here is correct.
Fortunately, the number of species in cultivation are manageable.
You may want to check against these species for those in your greenhouse:
S. willdenowii
S. peruviana
S. kraussiana
S. pallescens
S. moellendorfii
S. tamariscina
S. uncinata
S. apoda
Many of these species are from tropical America; Flora Mesoamericana may be a good place to start. Keying these taxa is difficult.
For the species present in the Iberian Peninsula and Macaronesian islands (e.g. Madeira and Canary Islands) you can see the information contained in FLORA IBERICA, Vol. I (1986), edited by Castroviejo et al., and FLORA OF MADEIRA (1994), of Press & Short.
Hi again.
Another interesting source of information on the genus Selaginella is found in the next book on ferns of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands:
SALVO, E. (1990). Guía de helechos de la Península Ibérica y Baleares. Ediciones Pirámide, S.A. Madrid. 377 pp.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Materials Science
- Materials
- Inorganic Materials
- Ceramics
- Glass