Callitriche platycarpaKütz.

Various-leaved Water-starwortvarious-leaved water-starwort

WFO wfo-0000778106 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC0

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 1 observation

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 1 time, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Callitriche platycarpa, photographed by Robert H. Wardell
fig. a Robert H. Wardell, CC0 1.0 / 2020-09-10 / obs. 94954166
Callitriche platycarpa, photographed by Robert H. Wardell
fig. b Robert H. Wardell, CC0 1.0 / obs. 94954171
Callitriche platycarpa, photographed by Robert H. Wardell
fig. c Robert H. Wardell, CC0 1.0 / obs. 94954173

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K001011021
Filed as
Callitriche platycarpa Kütz.
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
Lousley, J.E. 1950-07-27
Origin
not recorded
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 22 botanical countries

Regions where Callitriche platycarpa is native: East Aegean Is., Türkiye, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland East Aegean Is.TürkiyeAustriaBelgiumBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkFranceGermanyHungaryIrelandItalyNetherlandsNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainSwedenSwitzerland Føroyar
Native distribution of Callitriche platycarpa, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Austria AUT EUROPE
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Hungary HUN
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Netherlands NET
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
East Aegean Is. EAI ASIA-TEMPERATE
Türkiye TUR

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 35 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Callitriche aquatica subsp. platycarpa (Kütz.) Bonnier & Layens
  • Callitriche font-queri P.Allorge
  • Callitriche natans (L.) Samp.
  • Callitriche palustris var. natans L.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. anisophylla Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. caespititia Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. carpophora Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. fluctuans Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. lanceolata Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. laxa Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. leptophylla Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. major Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. minor Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa f. sterilis (Kütz.) Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa subsp. fluviatilis Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa subsp. stagnalis Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa var. agona Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa var. anisophylla (Kütz.) Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa var. elongata Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa var. expansa Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa var. gigantea Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa var. latifolia Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa var. leptophylla (Kütz.) Kütz.
  • Callitriche platycarpa var. obovata Kütz.

and 11 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.