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Marsh pennywort

Hydrocotyle vulgaris

Also called White Rot

Marsh pennywort
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0
Family
Araliaceae (Ivy family)
Grows as
Aquatic, Perennial
Light
Full sun, Part shade, Shade
Water
Likes moisture
Native range
Azores, Europe to Medit.
Climate
temperate

About

Hydrocotyle vulgaris, the marsh pennywort, common pennywort, water naval, money plant, lucky plant, dollarweed or copper coin, is a small creeping aquatic perennial plant native to North Africa, Europe, the Caucasus and parts of the Levant.

How to grow it

A low maintenance plant, it prefers to grow in reliably moist humus under a full sun or in part shade, indoors or outdoors, though it can tolerate full shade as well. It may also be grown as an aquatic plant in mud at the side of a pond or water garden in up to 2 inches of stagnant water. Despite its habitat in water, over-watering may still cause root rot.

Where it grows

In Britain it is the only native Hydrocotyle, growing in wet places such as fens, swamps, bogs and marshes. For example, it is a component of purple moor grass and rush pastures – a type of Biodiversity Action Plan habitat. The flowers rarely bloom; mostly self-pollination takes place. Vegetative propagation occurs through foothills. In wild plant gardens, the marsh pennywort is used for the planting of garden ponds, and also as aquarium plant.

Other Hydrocotyle plants

American marshpennywort · Largeleaf pennywort · Hydrocotyle digitata · Forest Pennywort · Hydrocotyle hexagona · Hairy Pennywort · Hydrocotyle hitchcockii · Nepalese Pennywort · Hydrocotyle laxiflora · Musky marshpennywort · Hydrocotyle phoenix · Whorled marshpennywort

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hydrocotyle vulgaris by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.

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.

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