Peplidium maritimum - Marsh Peplidium

Marsh Peplidium is a floating-aquatic or creeping annual herb of marshes, rooting at nodes in terrestrial plants; hairless. Leaves are opposite, obovate, elliptic or nearly round, up to 10-18 x 6-8 mm, base narrowed from short leaf-stalk, margin entire, tip rounded, surfaces glandular-dotted; leaf-stalks of opposite pairs connected by a membranous ridge across the node. Flowers are borne in leaf-axils, solitary, nearly stalkless, ebracteolate. Sepal-cup is tubular, about 2-3 mm long, 5-ribbed, tip shallowly and bluntly 5-lobed, persistent and somewhat growing larger in fruit. Flowers are purplish, barely extending beyond sepal-cup, about 3.5 mm long, weakly two-lipped, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed, lobes rounded. Stamens are 2; filaments flattened, broadened towards base; anthers yellow, unilocular. Stigma has a broad, flattened lobe. Capsules are ovoid, tardily and irregularly splitting, rupturing at the base. Seeds are numerous, oblong, angular. Marsh Peplidium is found in shallow freshwater wetlands behind coastal sand dunes and in salty sandy tidal creeks. Its native range is Egypt to Sinai, S. India, Sri Lanka.