Hydrocotyle vulgaris, the marsh pennywort, common pennywort, water naval, money plant, lucky plant, dollarweedorcopper coin,[2] is a small creeping aquaticperennial plant native to North Africa, Europe, the Caucasus and parts of the Levant.[3]
The plant has an umbrella-like leaf and lives commonly in wet places such as wetlands, marshes and swamps, sometimes even in deeper water. It grows as a perennialherbaceous plant and only reaches stature heights of 5 to 20 centimeters. With a slight smell of carrot, it is edible.[citation needed]
This marsh plant forms numerous, up to 1 meter long, creeping offshoots. The serrated, rounded, shield-shaped leaves can have a diameter of up to 4 centimeters, but are often smaller. The approach of the long, hairy petioles is located in the middle of the leaf underside. The leaves are fresh green, shiny waxy and shows a clear, radially extending vein.[citation needed]
The tiny, inconspicuous, hermaphrodite flowers are in low-flowered doldigen?inflorescences or whorls, with the stems of the inflorescence about half as long as those of the leaves. The petals are greenish, white or reddish. The flowering period is from July to August. The fruits are flat, warty and winged.[4]
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.[5]
The plant is distributed and plentiful throughout much of its range in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. Nonetheless, it is classed as critically endangered in Croatia, vulnerable in Switzerland and near threatened in Norway. Furthermore, the plant is protected under regional legislation in France.[1]
^Siegmund Seybold (ed.): Schmeil-Fitschen interactive . CD-ROM version 1.1. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2002, ISBN3-494-01327-6 .
^Christel Kasselmann: Aquarienpflanzen. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 1995; 2., überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage 1999, ISBN3-8001-7454-5, S. 306.
^Manfred A. Fischer, Wolfgang Adler, Karl Oswald: Excursion flora for Austria, Liechtenstein and South Tyrol . 2nd, improved and extended edition. Upper Austria, Biology Center of the Upper Austrian Provincial Museums, Linz 2005, ISBN3-85474-140-5 .
