Ellisia nyctelea (Waterpod) - photos and description
General: Small annual plants with a branching growth habit. Foliage has a minty smell when rubbed.
Flowers: Flowers white (or bluish) with 5 petals and 5 sepals. 5 stamens, corolla bell-shaped. Flower measured at 5 mm in diameter and 7 mm long. Sepals lanceolate to ovate, 4 mm long.
Leaves: Most leaves are pinnately lobed, typically 40 mm long and 20 mm wide. They were arranged in whorls, sometimes opposite (Budd's Flora says opposite or alternate). The two lowest leaves were opposite, entire, elliptical, 13 mm long and 6 mm wide. Petioles, leaf margins, and leaf tops hispid. Leaf bottoms glabrous.
Height: Height listed in Budd's Flora from 10 - 30 cm, I originally measured plants to only 6 cm in height, but have subsequently seen them about 30 cm tall growing in a woodland.
Habitat: Moist woods and stream banks. I have also seen this plant growing in a cultivated field and on waste ground in a provincial park, it might prefer disturbed soil.
Abundance: Common.
Origin: Native.
When and where photographed: Photos taken May 30th, bare soil beside gopher holes, meadow on edge of moist Aspen woods, Parklands, about 70 km southeast of our home in Regina, SK.