Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Hydrocotyle ranunculoides L.f.
- Family: Carrot (Umbelliferae)
- Flowering: July-October
- Field Marks: This penny-wort has leaves that are usually a little wider than long, with the leaf stalk attached along the edge of the leaf. The stalks that bear the umbel of white flowers are shorter than the leaf stalks.
- Habitat: Shallow water, in mud.
- Habit: Floating or creeping perennial herb, rooting at the nodes.
- Stems: Floating or creeping, slender, smooth, somewhat fleshy.
- Leaves: Simple, 5- to 6-lobed, usually a little wider than long, cleft at the base where the leaf stalk is attached, smooth, up to 3 inches wide, on smooth stalks up to 1 foot long.
- Flowers: Several in a small umbel, white, the umbel borne on a leafless stalk shorter than the stalk of the leaves; individual flower stalks up to 1/10 inch long.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 5, free from each other, about 1/16 inch long, white.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior, 2-lobed; styles 2.
- Fruits: Nearly round, flat, 2-lobed, brownish, with faint ribs.
- Notes: Gleason and Cronquist use the name Apiaceae for this family.
Previous Species -- American Burn (Erechtites hieracifolia)
Return to Species List -- Group 8
Next Species -- Virginia Water-leaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum)
