Azolla filiculoides Lam.

AMERICAN WATERFERN; PACIFIC MOSQUITOFERN

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Within the leaf of Azolla is a cavity housing filaments of the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium Anabaena azollae (whose generic-level taxonomy is unclear and sometimes put into the genera Nostoc or Trichormus). The taxonomy of Azolla in Florida remains muddied. Evrard & Van Hove (2004) identifed the type specimen of A. caroliniana as synonymous with A. filiculoides, preferring to recognize two species in the USA as A. cristata and A. filiculoides. DNA studies (Reid et al. 2006; Metzgar et al. 2007; Madeira et al. 2013) have found specimens of Azolla from Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin to be distinct from a specimen from Brazil identified as A. filiculoides. These DNA studies used the name A. caroliniana for the species in the eastern USA. Both A. filiculoides and A. caroliniana were reported for Virginiana, with additional notes on their identification (Bunch & Hayden 2020).

Native OBL (NWPL)

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