Marsilea ancylopodaA.Braun

tropical waterclover

WFO wfo-0001113701 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, 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.

Marsilea ancylopoda, photographed by Bahiano Ayala
fig. a Bahiano Ayala, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-25 / obs. 158504851
Marsilea ancylopoda, photographed by Étienne Lacroix-Carignan
fig. b Étienne Lacroix-Carignan, CC0 1.0 / obs. 34557758
Marsilea ancylopoda, photographed by demianlescano
fig. c demianlescano, CC0 1.0 / obs. 67307633
Marsilea ancylopoda, photographed by Jose Antonio Aranda Pineda
fig. d Jose Antonio Aranda Pineda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 9562580
Marsilea ancylopoda, photographed by aacocucci
fig. e aacocucci, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 27234378
Marsilea ancylopoda, photographed by Bahiano Ayala
fig. f Bahiano Ayala, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158504862
Marsilea ancylopoda, photographed by aacocucci
fig. g aacocucci, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 27234365
Marsilea ancylopoda, photographed by aacocucci
fig. h aacocucci, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 27234372

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 37 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 5.9 °C 7.8 °C 15.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.7 °C 29.6 °C 31.7 °C
Annual rainfall 785 mm 1,233 mm 1,580 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 50 mm 180 mm 286 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 37 research-grade observations of Marsilea ancylopoda 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.

Also published as 11 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.

  • Marsilea berteroi A.Braun
  • Marsilea concinna Baker
  • Marsilea ernestii A.Braun
  • Marsilea hickenii Herter
  • Marsilea mexicana A.Braun
  • Marsilea striata Ernst
  • Zaluzianskia ancylopoda (A.Braun) Kuntze
  • Zaluzianskia berteroi (A.Braun) Kuntze
  • Zaluzianskia concinna Kuntze
  • Zaluzianskia ernestii (A.Braun) Kuntze
  • Zaluzianskia mexicana (A.Braun) Kuntze

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.

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. It has no native range either: Kew's checklist does not cover this taxon.