The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Cardamine lyrata
Also called Japanese Cress, Paddy Bittercress
Cardamine lyrata is a perennial aquatic herb in the cabbage family, grown as a bushy aquarium and pond plant. It needs cool, slow-moving water and strong light.
Cardamine lyrata, known commonly as Japanese cress and Chinese ivy, is a species of aquatic plant in the mustard family. It is native to the marshes of eastern China and Siberia, as well as Korea and Japan. It flowers from May to June in the wild, with seeds ripening through September. The flowers are bisexual and are pollinated by insects, but are also self-fertile.
The species is cultivated as an aquarium ornamental. It needs a supply of cool, slow-moving water and strong light. It can grow rapidly under the right conditions and makes an attractive, bushy plant. It can be grown in ponds as long as the water temperature does not exceed about 82 °F (28 °C). It propagates easily by cuttings and high levels of carbon dioxide speed growth. Some fish will nibble on the leaves.
Brewer's bittercress · Crinkleroot · Hairy bittercress · Little western bittercress · Pennsylvania bittercress · Five Leaflet Bitter Cress · Whorled Coralroot · Trefoil Cress
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cardamine lyrata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
