Flora of North America species comparison

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Azolla mexicana

Mexican mosquito fern
Habit Plants green or often blue-green to dark red, some red-fringed leaves usually present in nature, free-floating or forming a multilayer mat to 4 cm thick in early summer; plants frequently fertile.
Stems

prostrate, 1–1.5 cm.
Largest

hairs on upper leaf lobe near stem 2(–3)-celled;

broad pedicel cell often 1/2 or more height of hair, apical cell curved, with tip nearly parallel to leaf surface.
Megaspores

not covered with raised angular bumps, pitted and sparsely covered with a few long filaments extending over surface.

Azolla mexicana
Habitat Stagnant or slow-moving waters.
Distribution
from FNA
AR; AZ; CA; CO; IA; IL; KS; MN; MO; NE; NM; NV; OK; OR; UT; WA; WI; BC; Mexico; Central America; South America
Discussion

Azolla mexicana is generally less cold tolerant and has a narrower environmental range than A. caroliniana. Both species are closely related and are similar vegetatively in culture. In the western United States, A. mexicana is often fertile. Distribution in the Great Plains area is tentative and needs further study. In the eastern United States, A. mexicana may have been occasionally introduced.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 2, p. 341.
Parent taxa Azollaceae > Azolla
Sibling taxa
A. caroliniana, A. filiculoides
Name authority C. Presl: Abh. Königl. Böhm. Ges. Wiss. ser. 5, 3: 150. (1845)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

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