Hydrocotyle ranunculoides

Floating marsh pennywort

Family: Araliaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Floating marsh pennywort is a native perennial found in coastal, northern California, central valley, central western, and southwestern regions in lake margins, ponds, and slow-moving streams at elevations below 1,500 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces small, barely noticeable white or greenish flowers in dense umbels with 5 to 10 blooms. Growing as a fleshy, floating or creeping plant with stout stems, it spreads across water surfaces with distinctive round to kidney-shaped leaves. Its leaves are deeply divided into 3 to 7 lobes, typically 2 to 5 centimeters wide and wider than they are long, with slightly scalloped edges. The plant's small fruits are elliptical to round, measuring 1 to 3 millimeters long with barely visible ribs.

Habitat: Lake margins, ponds, slow-moving streams

Bloom period: Mar-Aug

Elevation: < 1500 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoRO, CaRF, c GV, CW (exc SCoRI), SW (exc ChI, WTR), w edge DMoj

California counties: San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Orange, Kern, Sacramento, San Mateo, Humboldt, Alameda, Sonoma, Tehama, Kings, Santa Cruz, San Joaquin, Marin, Merced, Napa, Santa Clara, San Francisco

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.