Hydrocotyle verticillata

Hydrocotyle verticillata Thunb.

Common Names: Whorled Marsh Pennywort

Family: Apiaceae

Habit: Hydrocotyle verticillata 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 spikes (often split) 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 verticillata grows in Fresh Water Wetlands (Sabal palmetto Woodlands) and Human Altered environments (waste areas, seeps, roadsides).

Distribution: Hydrocotyle verticillata occurs on the northern pine islands in the Lucayan Archipelago as well as the Caribbean region, North and South America.

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