Hydrocotyle, also called floating pennywort,[5]water pennywort,[6]Indian pennywort, dollar weed, marsh penny, thick-leaved pennywort and white rot,[7] is a genus of prostrate, perennial[8] aquatic or semi-aquatic plants formerly classified in the family Apiaceae, now in the family Araliaceae.[3]
Description
Water pennyworts, Hydrocotyles, are very common.[clarification needed] They have long creeping stems that often form dense mats, often in and near ponds, lakes, rivers, and marshes,[6] and some species in coastal areas by the sea.[9][10]
Leaves
Simple, with small leafy outgrowth at the base, kidney shaped to round. Leaf edges are scalloped. The leaf surfaces of Hydrocotyle are prime grounds for oviposition of many butterfly species, such as Anartia fatima.
Flowers
Flower clusters are simple and flat-topped or rounded. Involucral bracts at the base of each flower. Indistinct sepals.
Flowering Hydrocotyleleucocephala
Flowering Hydrocotyle vulgaris
Fruits and reproduction
Elliptical to round with thin ridges and no oil tubes (vitta) which is characteristic in the fruit of umbelliferous plants.[8]
The prostrate plants reproduce by seed and by sending roots from stem nodes.[11]
Selected species
The genus Hydrocotyle has between 75 and 100 species[12] that grow in tropical and temperate regions worldwide.[8] A few species have entered the world of cultivated ornamental aquatics.[13] A list of selected species:[1][2][3][12][14][15][16]
^ ab"Hydrocotyle L."African Plants Database. South African National Biodiversity Institute, the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève and Tela Botanica. Archived from the original on January 1, 2013. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
^Łańcucka-Środoniowa M.: Macroscopic plant remains from the freshwater Miocene of the Nowy Sącz Basin (West Carpathians, Poland) [Szczątki makroskopowe roślin z miocenu słodkowodnego Kotliny Sądeckiej (Karpaty Zachodnie, Polska)]. Acta Palaeobotanica 1979 20 (1): 3-117.
External links
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