Dwarf Clover

Marsilea hirsuta

A small water fern whose leaves look like four-leaf clover. It grows in dim light and without carbon dioxide, and it is the calmest way to get a carpet — slow, but almost impossible to spoil.

Light: low
Height: 5 – 20 cm (2 – 7.9 in)

Plant type: rhizome
Growth rate: medium
CO₂ demand: low
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: carpet
Propagation: runners, division +1 runners, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Leaves on thin stalks, from single rounded blades to the four-lobed clover shape; height ranges from 5 to 20 cm depending on light. Bought plants usually arrive as clover and change shape once they settle — that is the plant adjusting, not failing.

Keeping

Undemanding: dim light and no carbon dioxide will do, though brighter light keeps it lower and denser. It grows slowly, which is exactly why it needs no trimming and does not overrun its neighbours.

Placement

The front of the tank as a low carpet. Plant small pieces of the creeping stem a few centimetres apart and let them join up.

Propagation

By runners: the creeping stem sends up new leaves along its length. Cut a rooted section and plant it 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.

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Marsilea azorica Launert & Paiva, Marsilea azorica, Zaluzianskia hirsuta
Marsilea hirsuta: R. Br.
Family: Marsileaceae
Range regions: New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia