Limosella australisR.Br.

Welsh mudwort

WFO wfo-0000445869 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Limosella australis, photographed by Arnim Littek
fig. a Arnim Littek, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-27 / obs. 202281353
Limosella australis, photographed by Stephen Thorpe
fig. b Stephen Thorpe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195806232
Limosella australis, photographed by Humber Alberto
fig. c Humber Alberto, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194337415
Limosella australis, photographed by Arnim Littek
fig. d Arnim Littek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189999990
Limosella australis, photographed by Arnim Littek
fig. e Arnim Littek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189994735
Limosella australis, photographed by Aalbert Rebergen
fig. f Aalbert Rebergen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186669081
Limosella australis, photographed by Arnim Littek
fig. g Arnim Littek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 185476339
Limosella australis, photographed by Arnim Littek
fig. h Arnim Littek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 184609735

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 48 botanical countries

Regions where Limosella australis is native: Cape Provinces, Gulf of Guinea Is., Malawi, Zimbabwe, Crozet Is., Falkland Is., Kerguelen, Marion-Prince Edward Is., Antipodean Is., New South Wales, New Zealand North, New Zealand South, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, Great Britain, Connecticut, Labrador, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Newfoundland, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward I., Québec, Rhode I., Virginia, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Argentina South, Bolivia, Brazil South, Chile Central, Chile North, Chile South, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru Cape ProvincesGulf of Guinea Is.MalawiZimbabweFalkland Is.KerguelenNew South WalesNew Zealand NorthNew Zealand SouthNorthern TerritoryQueenslandSouth AustraliaTasmaniaVictoriaWestern AustraliaConnecticutLabradorMaineMarylandMassachusettsNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNewfoundlandNorth CarolinaNova ScotiaPennsylvaniaPrince Edward I.QuébecVirginiaArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestArgentina SouthBoliviaBrazil SouthChile CentralChile NorthChile SouthColombiaDominican RepublicEcuadorPeru Crozet Is.Marion-Prince Edward Is.Antipodean Is.Rhode I.
Native distribution of Limosella australis, 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
Connecticut CNT NORTHERN AMERICA
Labrador LAB
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
North Carolina NCA
Nova Scotia NSC
Pennsylvania PEN
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
Virginia VRG
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Argentina Northwest AGW
Argentina South AGS
Bolivia BOL
Brazil South BZS
Chile Central CLC
Chile North CLN
Chile South CLS
Colombia CLM
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
Peru PER
Antipodean Is. ATP AUSTRALASIA
New South Wales NSW
New Zealand North NZN
New Zealand South NZS
Northern Territory NTA
Queensland QLD
South Australia SOA
Tasmania TAS
Victoria VIC
Western Australia WAU
Cape Provinces CPP AFRICA
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Malawi MLW
Zimbabwe ZIM
Crozet Is. CRZ ANTARCTICA
Falkland Is. FAL
Kerguelen KEG
Marion-Prince Edward Is. MPE
Great Britain GRB EUROPE

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.

Flowering 289 in flower of 337 examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Limosella australis 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. 289 of 337 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 792 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -12.2 °C 4.3 °C 9.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 15.8 °C 20.5 °C 26.0 °C
Annual rainfall 534 mm 1,156 mm 2,129 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 62 mm 225 mm 432 mm

It is found where winters bring hard 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 792 research-grade observations of Limosella australis 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 24 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.

  • Limosella americana Glück
  • Limosella americana f. natans Glück
  • Limosella americana f. terrestris Glück
  • Limosella aquatica f. natans Glück
  • Limosella aquatica f. terrestris Glück
  • Limosella aquatica subsp. tenuifolia (J.P.Wolff) Pers.
  • Limosella aquatica var. americana Glück
  • Limosella aquatica var. tenuifolia (Wolfg. ex Hoffm.) Hook.f.
  • Limosella brachystema Raf.
  • Limosella coerulea Burch.
  • Limosella lineata Glück
  • Limosella lineata f. natans Glück
  • Limosella lineata f. submersa Glück
  • Limosella lineata f. terrestris Glück
  • Limosella lineata var. brevistylis Glück
  • Limosella lineata var. spathulata Glück
  • Limosella maritima Raf.
  • Limosella minuta Dinter & Suess.
  • Limosella monticola Dinter
  • Limosella subulata E.Ives
  • Limosella subulata f. maritima Pennell
  • Limosella subulata f. submersa Glück
  • Limosella subulata f. terrestris Glück
  • Ygramela maritima (Raf.) Raf.

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.