Description: Small glabrous annual or possibly 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 solitary in leaf axils at the base of the plant, with bracts and bracteoles absent. Calyx tube 5-angled, equally 5-toothed, or rarely in depauperate plants 4- or 3-merous. Corolla ± actinomorphic, campanulate, just exserted from the calyx, the lobes 5, ± equal. Stamens 4; anthers 1-locular. Stigma obscurely 2-lobed, subcapitate.
Capsule almost entirely surrounded by the enlarged persistent calyx, septum incomplete, absent in the upper half; seeds numerous, striate-reticulate.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 15 species, temperate regions. Australia: 3 species (native), all States except N.T. Mudworts
Text by W. R. Barker
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves more or less filiform with lamina undifferentiated or lamina oblanceolate and 1–3 mm wide with base long-attenuate; calyx with a red-purple patch below each sinus; pedicels in fruit usually 8–25 long | Limosella australis |
| Leaves with lamina more or less oblong-elliptic, 2–10 mm wide, with base cuneate to rounded; calyx lacking purple patches; pedicels in fruit 0.2–8 mm long | Limosella curdieana |
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