Hydrocotyle umbellata

Hydrocotyle umbellata L.

Common Names: Many Flowered Marsh Pennywort

Family: Apiaceae

Habit: Hydrocotyle umbellata grows as from an herbaceous rhizome with leaves to 50 cm in height.  The emergent leaves are alternate, glabrous, round-peltate with lobes, to 8 cm in diameter, lobes with a crenate margin.

The incomplete, perfect, actinomorphic flowers are arranged in umbels from leaf axils. There is no calyx. The corolla has 5 unfused white petals. There are 5 unfused stamens.  The inferior ovary has 2 locules each with a single seed.  The fruit is a flattened, brown samara with ridges throughout.

Habitat: Hydrocotyle umbellata grows in wet Human Altered environments (waste areas, yards, seeps, roadsides).

Distribution: Hydrocotyle umbellata is NOT native to the Lucayan Archipelago but does occur on the northern pine islands in the Lucayan Archipelago as well as the Caribbean region, Central, North and South America.

Medicinal/Cultural/Economic usage: Hydrocotyle umbellata is not used medicinally in the Bahamian Archipelago.