''Isoetes bolanderi'', or Bolander's quillwort, is a species of

quillwort ''Isoetes'', commonly known as the quillworts, is the only extant genus of plants in the family Isoetaceae, which is in the class of lycopods. There are currently 192 recognized species, with a cosmopolitan distribution but with the individual s ...

, a type of

lycophyte The lycophytes, when broadly circumscribed, are a vascular plant (tracheophyte) subgroup of the kingdom Plantae. They are sometimes placed in a division Lycopodiophyta or Lycophyta or in a subdivision Lycopodiophytina. They are one of the oldes ...

. This

aquatic plant Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments (saltwater or freshwater). They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes to distinguish them from algae and other microphytes. A macrophyte is a plant that ...

is native to high altitude regions of the western United States and southern

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. It grows almost entirely underwater in lakes and other water bodies from a

corm A corm, bulbo-tuber, or bulbotuber is a short, vertical, swollen underground plant stem that serves as a storage organ that some plants use to survive winter or other adverse conditions such as summer drought and heat (perennation). The word ' ...

-like stem, which remains buried in the mud, producing up to twenty pointed, cylindrical leaves approaching 15 centimeters in maximum length. It reproduces via spherical

sporangia A sporangium (; from Late Latin, ) is an enclosure in which spores are formed. It can be composed of a single cell or can be multicellular. Virtually all plants, fungi, and many other lineages form sporangia at some point in their life cyc ...

, covered about one third by the velum. The

ligule A ligule (from "strap", variant of ''lingula'', from ''lingua'' "tongue") is a thin outgrowth at the junction of leaf and leafstalk of many grasses (Poaceae) and sedges. A ligule is also a strap-shaped extension of the corolla, such as that of a ...

is small and heart-shaped. The megaspores are white, though sometimes bluish, and 350 to 290 micrometers in diameter. The microspores are 25 to 30 micrometers long.

References

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfilePhoto gallery
bolanderi Flora of Alberta Flora of the Western United States {{Lycophyte-stub