Bergia trimera
Fisch. & C.A.Mey. Small Water-fireProstrate or procumbent annual, forming loose mats to c. 20 cm diam.; stems sparsely septate-hairy. Leaves subsessile, ovate, obovate or oblanceolate, 5–20 mm long, 2–6 mm wide, often glaucous; margins distantly serrulate. Flowers sessile to shortly pedicellate, densely clustered in axils; sepals 3(–4), narrowly ovate, c. 1 mm long, midrib slightly thickened, green, margins thin, entire or somewhat toothed toward apex, white or purplish; petals slightly longer and broader than sepals, pink, membranous; stamens and styles as many as other segments. Capsule globular, purplish-brown, slightly exceeding perianth. Seeds cylindric, c. 0.4 mm long, patterned by raised reticulations. Flowers mainly Jan.–Apr. (after summer floods).
MuM, VRiv, MSB, RobP, MuF. All mainland States. Also India, Sri Lanka. Rare in Victoria, confined to floodplains of the Murray River in the far northwest (Red Cliffs, Lake Wallawalla), and areas prone to inundation near Kerang. Rarely observed in the absence of recent floods. First collected in Victoria in 1982.
Walsh, N.G. (1996). Elatinaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 3, Dicotyledons Winteraceae to Myrtaceae, pp. 313–316. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
