Hydrocotyle sibthorpioidesLam.

lawn marshpennywort

WFO wfo-0000726583 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides, photographed by Bonnie Semmling
fig. a Bonnie Semmling, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-23 / obs. 200182258

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.

Native range 55 botanical countries

Regions where Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides is native: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Gulf of Guinea Is., Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Palestine, Taiwan, Yemen, Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria AngolaBurundiCameroonCongoDR CongoEthiopiaGuineaGulf of Guinea Is.KenyaMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueRwandaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabweChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanJapanPalestineTaiwanYemenAssamBangladeshBorneoEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPakistanPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamWest HimalayaNew South WalesQueenslandTasmaniaVictoria KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides, 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
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
Angola ANG AFRICA
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Ethiopia ETH
Guinea GUI
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Kenya KEN
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Rwanda RWA
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Palestine PAL
Taiwan TAI
Yemen YEM
New South Wales NSW AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD
Tasmania TAS
Victoria VIC

Not drawn on the map: Ogasawara-shoto. 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.

Flowering 431 in flower of 785 examined

Proportion of examined Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 17 38 45% 30% to 60%
Feb 18 50 36% 24% to 50%
Mar 30 63 48% 36% to 60%
Apr 78 117 67% 58% to 75%
May 56 79 71% 60% to 80%
Jun 64 92 70% 60% to 78%
Jul 40 62 65% 52% to 75%
Aug 50 91 55% 45% to 65%
Sep 26 52 50% 37% to 63%
Oct 28 62 45% 33% to 57%
Nov 16 44 36% 24% to 51%
Dec 8 35 23% 12% to 39%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 431 of 785 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,990 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -4.1 °C 2.2 °C 18.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.3 °C 30.0 °C 32.7 °C
Annual rainfall 983 mm 1,353 mm 3,976 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 91 mm 260 mm 639 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,990 research-grade observations of Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 28 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.

  • Chondrocarpus sibthorpioides (Lam.) Sweet
  • Hydrocotyle americana var. minima (Hochst. ex A.Rich.) Hiern
  • Hydrocotyle americana var. monticola (Hook.f.) Hiern
  • Hydrocotyle batrachium Hance
  • Hydrocotyle confusa H.Wolff
  • Hydrocotyle ecostata Collett & Hemsl.
  • Hydrocotyle formosana Masam.
  • Hydrocotyle gracilenta Hook.f.
  • Hydrocotyle hirsuta var. minuta Blume
  • Hydrocotyle keelungensis Tang S.Liu, C.Y.Chao & T.I.Chuang
  • Hydrocotyle latisecta Zoll.
  • Hydrocotyle minima Hochst. ex A.Rich.
  • Hydrocotyle monticola Hook.f.
  • Hydrocotyle nitidula A.Rich.
  • Hydrocotyle peduncularis R.Br. ex A.Rich.
  • Hydrocotyle peduncularis var. gracilenta (Hook.f.) Benth.
  • Hydrocotyle perexigua Hance
  • Hydrocotyle puncticulata Miq.
  • Hydrocotyle ranunculoides Blume
  • Hydrocotyle ranunculoides var. incisa Blume
  • Hydrocotyle ranunculoides var. sibthorpioides (Lam.) Spreng.
  • Hydrocotyle rotundifolia Roxb. ex DC.
  • Hydrocotyle rotundifolia var. batrachium (Hance) Cherm.
  • Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides f. pilosa H.Hara

and 4 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.