Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 631 (1753).

Derivation: Diminutive of the Latin limosus, muddy; alluding to the habitat and size of the plant.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Small glabrous annual or ?short-lived perennial herbs, often stoloniferous; leaves usually radical by suppression of internodes, rarely opposite on new stolons, with a long slender petiole dilated at the base, and a small to large palmately veined, entire, glandular-punctate blade shorter than, rarely equalling, the petiole.

Flowers single in leaf axils at the base of the plant, with bracts and bracteoles absent; sepals fused into an equally 5-toothed and -angled tube, rarely in depauperate plants 4- or 3-merous; corolla more or less regular, campanulate, just exserted from the calyx, the lobes 5, more or less equal; stamens 4, the anthers l-celled; stigma obscurely 2-lobed, subcapitate.

Capsule almost entirely surrounded by the enlarged persistent calyx, the septum incomplete, absent in the upper half; seeds numerous, striate-reticulate.

Distribution:  Up to 15 species in temperate regions of both hemispheres; 3 species in Australia, whose separation from species elsewhere in the world needs confirmation in a world revision. (H. Gliick (25 June 1934) Novae species et varietates generis Limosellae, Notizbl. Bot. Gart. Mus. Berlin 12:71-78; H. Glück (20 Dec. 1934) Limosella-Studien, Bot. Jb. 66:488-566, pl. 6-8). Mudworts.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:

1. Leaf blade small or large and obovate, its base narrow-cuneate; calyx with a red-purple patch below each sinus; pedicels in fruit 8-25 rarely to 2 mm long
2. Leaf blade not differentiated or to 12 x 1.5 rarely to 3 mm; calyx in flower 1.5-2 mm long; capsule 2.2-2.8 x 1.8-2 mm; seeds 0.5-0.7 mm long	L. australis 1.
2. Leaf blade 6-20 x 2-4.5 mm; calyx in flower 2-3 mm long; capsule 3.2-4.8 x 2.5-3.5 mm; seeds 0.9-1.1 mm long	L. granitica 3.
1. Leaf blade large, broad-elliptic, its base cuneate to rounded; calyx lacking purple patches; pedicels in fruit 0.2-8 mm long	L. curdieana 2.

Author: Not yet available