Lesser Water-Plantain

Lesser Water-Plantain - Baldellia ranunculoides

Description

This plant has white flowers, sometimes tinged with pale pink or pale lilac.  Each flower has three dainty petals with rough, ragged edges and fairly short sepals. Flowers are typically 12 to 16 mm across. The seeds are rather like those of buttercups. Leaves are in a basal rosette, lanceolate, tapered at both ends and stalked.

Identification difficulty
Habitat

Bare muddy edges of freshwater bodies such as pools and ponds.

When to see it

Flowers May to October.

Life History

Perennial herb.

UK Status

Fairly widespread but quite local in Britain.

VC55 Status

Rare as introduced plant in Leicestershire and Rutland.

It was on the 2011 VC55 Rare Plant Register (Jeeves, 2011) but is not on the current RPR (Hall & Woodward, 2022) because records are of introduced plants

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2025+ | 2020-2024 | pre-2020

UK Map

Additional images

All NatureSpot records