Marsilea macrocarpa C.Presl var. capensis (A.Braun) Sim

Floating form: stipe up to 20 cm long, slender, flexible; leaflets narrowly obdeltate to obdeltate-obovate, outer margin 2-lobate, crenate or rarely entire, at first with appressed long hairs, later becoming hairless. Sporocarps: dark brown to almost black at maturity, 2.75-3.75 mm long, 2.25-3.5 mm high, 0.8-1.25 mm thick, obliquely broad-oblong or irregularly rhombic in lateral view, distally obliquely truncate or more rarely rounded, narrowly elliptic in dorsoventral cross-section, laterally compressed or only slightly inflated; at first densely set with long hairs, becoming hairless when mature; lateral ribs absent; lower tooth absent or very rarely present as a shallow hump, upper tooth present, short, conical, acute or subacute; pedicels 4-7 mm long, slender, erect or ascending, free from each other, solitary, arising from the axil of the stipe.

capensis: from the Cape of Good Hope, from where this species was first described.

Along rivers, in river back-waters, in seasonally swamped grassland, and in water holes.

Africa, probably also in Iraq and Iran.

Egypt, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia.

Aquatic, terrestrial.