Water pennywort - Hydrocotyle ranunculoides

Common Name :	Water pennywort, Floating pennywort.
Botanical Name :	Hydrocotyle ranunculoides
Family :	Apiaceae
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

Water pennywort is a plant native to America and Africa. But now a days widely used as an ornamental plant for its beautiful penny shaped leafs. This plant is also known as Floating pennywort, Floating marshpennywort, etc. Binomial name of the plant is Hydrocotyle ranunculoides and it belongs to the plant family Apiaceae (carrot family).

Water pennywort (Hydrocotyle ranunculoides) is a herbaceous perennial aquatic plant that grows in pond, lake, wetlands, etc places. The plant has beautiful round shaped leafs atop of a long petiole that is connected to the center of the leaf. Size of the glossy basal leafs are a size of a penny, that is why it is known as Pennywort. Leafs are having roundly toothed at the margin. Leafs are Plant grows horizontally (using stolons) and can float in water.

Flowers of Water pennywort (Hydrocotyle ranunculoides) are not that much attractive and showy. Small flower blooms in a cluster and having a creamy white, pale green in color. Flower cluster blooms over a long stalk. Each flowers are having five tiny petals. Flowers are hermaphrodite.

Water pennywort is a very fast and aggressive grower. It can cover the water or land very quickly (even over other species). This plant is very hard to remove as it can grow very quickly from the remaining part of the plant. That's why this plant is banned in many countries (such as UK, Australia).

Photos of Water pennywort (Hydrocotyle ranunculoides) were taken from the following location of Bangladesh.
01. June 2015: Dhaka.


This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icflora.blogspot.com/