Folks, this seems obvious to me, but what I would do is locate in the
Botanical Society of America (or other botanical organization)
membership list a taxonomist or a morphologist from a place where
Marsilea grows and ask that person if s/he would collect sporocarps for
me. I would be willing to pay for the effort to get them. Alternatively,
a major botanical garden might supply them. (Someone, with a strong
environmental ethic so that over harvesting was prevented, could make a
bit of a cottage industry of this and "advertise" [ahem] on plant-ed.)
It is not very likely that plant-ed reaches the people who could really
find them, so my method goes to a more likely source.
jim
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Janice M. Glime" [mailto:jmglime at mtu.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 11:15 AM
> To: plant-ed at net.bio.net> Subject: Re: Marsilea sporocarps
>>>> I concluded several years ago that Carolina folks do not know
> their Marsilea taxonomy. I thought that the hairy ones were
> from Marsilea vestita, but since I have not seen whole
> plants, ID from just a sporocarp is a bit questionable.
> Marsilea quadrifolia, according to the new Flora North
> America, has pubescent sporocarps that are soon glabrate, but
> then M. vestita is likewise described that way. Marsilea
> macropoda has matted or twisted hairs on the sporocarp and
> might be what they are getting. I think that perhaps the
> sporocarps also are not mature when collected. It is
> interesting that in Flora North America, no species is native
> to the Carolinas.
>> I too am struggling to find a new source for these wonderful
> sporocarps.
>> Janice
> ***********************************
> Janice M. Glime, Professor
> Department of Biological Sciences
> Michigan Technological University
> Houghton, MI 49931-1295
>jmglime at mtu.edu> 906-487-2546
> FAX 906-487-3167
> ***********************************
>> ---
>---
