Habit: Perennial herb, creeping or sprawling, glabrous [hairy]; rhizomes or stem rooting at nodes.
Leaf: simple; petiole scarious-stipuled, not sheathing; blade +- round, peltate or not, entire to deeply lobed.
Inflorescence: simple umbels, occasionally spikes, open or dense; bracts 0 or inconspicuous; pedicels 0--many, spreading.
Flower: calyx lobes 0 or minute; petals obtuse or acute, +- green to +- yellow-white or +- purple, tip not incurved.
Fruit: elliptic to round, very compressed side-to-side; ribs +- equal, thread-like, distinct or not; oil tubes 0, fruit wall with individual oil cells; fruit central axis not obvious.
Seed: face flat to convex.
Species In Genus: +- 100 species: worldwide, especially southern hemisphere.
Etymology: (Greek: water cup, apparently from leaf shape)
Note: Hydrocotyle moschata G. Forst.,
Hydrocotyle ranunculoides, and
Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides Lam. occasionally reported as lawn weeds.
Jepson eFlora Author: Robert E. Preston & Lincoln Constance
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Hydrocotyle
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