Dwarf Clover

Marsilea crenata

A small fern from Asian rice fields whose leaves look like tiny four-leaf clovers. It creeps along the substrate and makes one of the lowest carpets in the hobby — slowly, and without much fuss.

Plant type: rhizome
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: carpet
Propagation: runners, division +1 runners, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Leaves divided into four small leaflets on thin stalks, growing from a creeping stem. Under water in a well-lit tank the leaves stay low; in shallow water or above the surface they stand upright.

Keeping

Tolerant of a wide range of conditions, which is what makes it a good first carpet plant. It spreads slowly, so a lawn takes months rather than weeks — but it also means it needs almost no trimming, unlike the faster creeping plants it is usually compared with.

Placement

The front of the tank as a low carpet, and around the base of stones and wood, where it fills the gaps.

Propagation

By runners: new leaves appear along the creeping stem, and a piece of it with roots can be moved 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: Marsilea crenata 1 2 GROW, Marsilea crenata in Vitro XL

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Marsilea elata crenata
Marsilea crenata: C. Presl
Family: Marsileaceae
Conservation status: LC

Dwarf Clover

Tank conditions

Care and keeping