The water fern, Marsilea, looks like a four-leaf clover, but circinate vernation gives it away as a fern. It is rhizomatous from which leaves emerge at the nodes. The the base of some of the leaves, a sporocarp (a hardened folded leaf with sporangia inside) develops (19-29 a&b). The sporocarp develops as a gelatinous ring which allows the sori to emerge into the water (19-30 a&b). These are heterosporous. Microspores develop into multiflagellate sperm and the megaspores develop into a megagametophyte which does not exceed the bounds of the spore wall. The daughter sporophyte grows from the zygote in the archegonium in the megaspore and appears almost like a germinating seed.