Whorled pennywort

Description

Hydrocotyle verticillata, also known as whorled pennywort, whorled marshpennywort or shield pennywort, is a flowering plant found in South and North America and the West Indies. The creeping plants with unusual leaves give it its common names. It grows in places that are marshy, boggy, and wet. Hydrocotyle verticillata is used in aquaria, where it is undemanding but prefers a good substrate, and at least moderate light. It benefits from additional carbon dioxide. It is widely used as a foreground plant. Hydrocotyle, sometimes called water pennywort, Indian pennywort, dollar weed, marsh penny, thick-leaved pennywort and even white rot is a genus of prostrate, perennial aquatic or semi-aquatic plants formerly classified in the family Apiaceae, now in the family Araliaceae. Water pennyworts, Hydrocotyles, are very common. They have long creeping stems that often form dense mats, often in and near ponds, lakes, rivers, marshes and some species in coastal areas by the sea. 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. Flower clusters are simple and flat-topped or rounded. Involucral bracts Inconspicuous bracts at the base of each flower. Indistinct sepals. Elliptical to round with thin ridges and no oil tubes (vitta) which is characteristic in the fruit of umbelliferous plants. The prostrate plants reproduce by seed and by sending roots from stem nodes.