L., Sp. Pl. 234. 1753 Glabrous herb, usually aquatic, creeping, densely rooting at nodes. Leaves single at each node; petioles 5-20 (40) cm long, fleshy; blades peltate, orbicular, 2-7.5 cm diam, crenate or crenately lobed. Umbels simple, axillary; peduncles long, erect, +/- equaling leaves; flowers 5-parted, several to many on rays 2-25 mm long; sepals lacking; petals 5, white, ca 1 mm long, spreading at anthesis, becoming recurved; stamens spreading, less than half as long as or equaling petals; styles 2, spreading, or directed toward one another; stigmas +/- globular. Fruits ellipsoid, 2-carpellate (rarely 3-carpellate), 1-2 mm long, 2-3 mm broad. Croat 13233. Throughout warmer regions of the New World; tropical southern Africa. In Panama, known from aquatic situations in tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, Colon, Chiriqui, and Panama, from tropical dry forest in Coclé, and from premontane wet forest in Chiriqui and Coclé,