Stems erect to prostrate, usually rooting nodally, glabrous or strigose. Roots not thickened basally, glabrous. Proximal cauline leaf blades ovate to broadly ovate, 0.8-2.7 × 0.8-1.9 cm, base rounded to weakly cordate, margins entire or dentate, apex rounded or obtuse. Inflorescences: bracts lanceolate to oblanceolate or sometimes ovate. Flowers: receptacle glabrous; sepals 5, spreading or reflexed from base, 1.5-3 × 1-2 mm, glabrous; petals 5-6, 3-5 × 1-2 mm; nectary scales glabrous. Heads of achenes hemispheric or globose, 2-4 × 3-4 mm; achenes 1.2-1.4 × 1-1.2 mm, glabrous; beak lanceolate to lance-filiform, straight or curved, 0.4-1 mm.

Flowering late spring-summer (Jun-Aug). Wet soil or shallow water, in marshes and edges of streams and lakes; 2000-2900 m; Ariz., Calif., N.Mex.; Mexico; Central America (in Guatemala).

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Aquatic perennial with leafy glabrous stem, stem hollow.

Leaves: Alternate and basal with long petioled blades, blades ovate to elliptic, acute to rounded or even cordate at base, entire except for occasional small notches on either side of blade below apex.

Flowers: Solitary flower on long peduncle, 5 sepals greenish yellow, 2.5-3 mm long, spreading and deciduous, 5 petals yellow, 5-6 mm long, many stamens arranged around light green central cone.

Fruits: Fruiting cone light green, with compressed achenes about 1 mm long, margined with hooked beak at the apex.

Ecology: Found in boggy soils along lakes and ponds, seeps, springs, and rivers from 5,000-9,000 ft (1524-2743 m); flowers June-August.

Notes: The leaves are distinctive with their shovel-like appearance with notches on either side of the blade below the apex.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Ranunculus is from Latin rana, for little frog, while hydrocharoides means resembling the genus Hydrocharis, which is from Greek hydor for water and charis, delicate, beauty, grace.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley, 2010