Hydrocotyle rugulosa
Turcz. Mallee PennywortSlender, erect or ascending, glabrous annual, 2–12 cm high, often tinged dark purple, often branched at base, often almost leafless in fruit. Cotyledons 2.4–3 mm long, c. 1 mm wide, oblong, usually retained until plant in fruit. Leaf-lamina 4–9 mm across, divided to below middle (or, in upper leaves to base) into 3 lobes; lobes entire, 3-dentate or lateral lobes to deeply 3-lobed; petiole 2–15 mm long; stipules membranous, narrow-ovate, fringed, white. Umbels simple, leaf-opposed, globose, 2–3 mm diam., 2–4-flowered; peduncle 2–10 mm long; pedicel to 0.5 mm long. Petals c. 0.5 mm long, white to purple. Fruits flattened, dark, c. 0.9 mm long, c. 1.3 mm wide, surface slightly colliculate; mericarps with very obtuse and thick dorsal and intermediate ribs connected by 2 or 3 thick, blunt transverse ridges with 2–4 deep depressions between them on each side of the dorsal rib, each depression often with a minute white ridge-like protuberance. Flowers spring.
LoM, MuM, Wim, Gold, GGr. Also WA, SA. Confined in Victoria to mallee communities in the north-west, where scattered in open woodland and scrubs in depressions and on sandstone rises.
Duretto, M.F. (1999). Apiaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 4, Cornaceae to Asteraceae, pp. 256–258. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
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