Lawn Pennywort

Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides

Tiny round leaves like clover on creeping stems that run wherever there is room — over the substrate, up a stone, along a branch. The smallest and quickest of the pennyworts.

Light: high
Difficulty: medium
Temperature: 10 – 30 °C (50 – 86 °F)

Native rangeRange on the map

Angola
Assam
Bangladesh
Borneo
Burundi
Cameroon
China North-Central
China South-Central
China Southeast
Congo
DR Congo
East Himalaya
Ethiopia
Guinea
Gulf of Guinea Is.
Hainan
India
Japan
Jawa
Kenya
Korea
Laos
Lesser Sunda Is.
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaya
Maluku
Mozambique
Myanmar
Nansei-shoto
Nepal
New Guinea
New South Wales
Ogasawara-shoto
Pakistan
Palestine
Philippines
Queensland
Rwanda
Sri Lanka
Sudan-South Sudan
Sulawesi
Sumatera
Taiwan
Tanzania
Tasmania
Thailand
Togo
Uganda
Victoria
Vietnam
West Himalaya
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Plant type: stem plant
Growth rate: medium
Carbonate hardness: 2 – 14 °dKH
Placement: midground, nano tank +1 midground, nano tank, foreground
Propagation: runners, cuttings
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Rounded leaves the size of a fingernail on thin upright stalks, growing from a stem that creeps along the ground. Rounder and smaller than the leaves of its more common relatives.

Keeping

Moderate demands, and light decides the shape: under strong light it stays low and makes a carpet, in dim light it stretches and trails. Carbon dioxide is not required. It grows fast enough to fill an empty corner in a few weeks, and fast enough to need trimming after.

Placement

The front or middle of the tank, or trailing over wood and stone. Its size suits a nano tank, where a single trimmed patch is a whole foreground.

Propagation

By the creeping stem: cut a piece with a few leaves and its own roots and press it in elsewhere.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1017 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Swordtail Guppies Cobra Guppy Blood Red Molly Butterflyfish Red Zebra Cichlid Julii Corydoras Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Kenyi Cichlid Cuckoo Catfish Golden Swordtail Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Labeo Bicolor Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Geophagus Brokopondo Zebra Mbuna

Will eat this plant

These species damage plants, especially when their diet is short of vegetable food.

Bengal Loach Zebra Loach Burmese Border Loach Emperor Botia Spined Loach Marbled Headstander Pellegrin's Leporinus Leporinus striatus False Black Tetra Common Metynnis Mylossoma duriventre Red Whiptail Catfish Molly sphenops Balloon Molly Lyretail Molly Marble Molly Hi-Fin Platy Hawaii Platy Blue Platy Pintail Platy Black Platy Chocolate Molly Moonlight Gourami Melanotaenia parva

Will uproot it

These species dig through the substrate and pull rooted plants out.

Marble Loach Peacock Eel Forktail Loach Guntea Loach Long-nosed Loach Horseface Loach Pearlscale Black Moor Goldfish Shubunkin Painted Pleco Featherfin Synodontis Reddish Mystus Catfish Blue Acara Aulonocara maylandi Aulonocara multicolor Aulonocara Orchid Geophagus altifrons Geophagus winemilleri Pearlscale Cichlid Pearl Cichlid Redbelly Cichlid Red-spotted Cichlid Chuco godmanni Haplochromis philander Red Chromide Jack Dempsey cichlid

Matching water does not mean the fish will leave the plant alone.

The same plant with a different look: light, water and care are shared with the species.

Other varieties: Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides Variegata, Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides Variegata in Vitro

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Chondrocarpus sibthorpioides, Geophila yunnanensis, Hydrocotyle americana minima, Hydrocotyle americana monticola, Hydrocotyle confusa, Hydrocotyle ecostata, Hydrocotyle gracilenta, Hydrocotyle hirsuta, Hydrocotyle hirsuta minuta, Hydrocotyle latisecta, Hydrocotyle minima, Hydrocotyle monticola, Hydrocotyle nitidula, Hydrocotyle peduncularis gracilenta, Hydrocotyle perexigua, Hydrocotyle puncticulata, Hydrocotyle ranunculoides, Hydrocotyle ranunculoides incisa, Hydrocotyle ranunculoides sibthorpioides, Hydrocotyle rotundifolia, Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides pilosa, Hydrocotyle splendens, Hydrocotyle tenella, Hydrocotyle zollingeri
Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides: Lam.
Family: Araliaceae
Conservation status: LC

Lawn Pennywort

Tank conditions

Care and keeping