A pyramid of tiny three-petalled pink-white flowers rises from a rosette of long-stalked oval leaves with curved parallel veins in shallow water
Water plantain, Alisma plantago-aquatica.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Water plantain
Native · flowers Jun–Sep · shallow water and muddy margins
Alisma plantago-aquatica — Alismataceae
A tall, airy plant of shallow water and muddy margins, with long-stalked oval leaves and a wide, branching cloud of small three-petalled pink-white flowers. It opens in the afternoon and early evening, attracting small flies. It is not a relative of the plantains of lawns.
How to spot them
- ▸Large branched panicle up to 1 m tall of small, pale lilac-pink flowers, each with three petals
- ▸Oval, long-stalked leaves with strongly curved parallel veins, growing from a basal clump
- ▸Flowers open in the afternoon and early evening
- ▸Grows in shallow water, mud and the edges of slow ponds, canals and ditches
- ▸Look-alike: lesser water-plantain (Baldellia ranunculoides) is much smaller with fewer, larger pink flowers; arrowhead has arrow-shaped leaves and white flowers
How to know it
Its flowers open in the afternoon and early evening, attracting small flies
Water plantain, per the Wildlife Trusts.
Despite the name and the leaf shape it is not related to the plantains of lawns, but belongs with arrowhead in Alismataceae
Water plantain.
Provides resting and sheltering places for caddis flies and alder flies
Water plantain, per the Wildlife Trusts.
Its double-barrelled species name, plantago-aquatica, means a plantain of the water, for leaves like those of a lawn weed
Alisma plantago-aquatica.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Alismataceae, which also includes arrowhead
- •Wildlife Trusts: flowers June to September, up to 1 m, common through the UK though scarcer in north Scotland
- •The flowers open in the afternoon and early evening, attracting small flies
- •Provides resting and sheltering places for caddis flies and alder flies
- •The leaves resemble those of true plantains (Plantago), but the plants are unrelated
- •Grows in shallow water, mud and along the margins of ponds and slow rivers
- •Native
Drill it — 6 cards
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Water-plantain