| General Information |
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| Distribution | A cosmopolitan genus of about 200 species widespread in the Southern Hemisphere with a few representatives in the Northern Hemisphere.
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Habit
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Slender, perennial herbs with creeping stems or rootstocks.
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Leaves
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Leaves simple, peltate or nonpeltate, palmately veined and sometimes lobed or divided; petiole not sheathing; stipules present.
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Flowers
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Flowers few to numerous in simple umbels, sometimes proliferous, or in spikes with few-flowered whorls, involucre of a few inconspicuous, narrow bracts or absent; calyx teeth minute or absent; petals greenish white, yellowish white, or purplish, ovate; styles usually longer than the conical to depressed stylopodium; carpophore absent.
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Fruit
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Fruit compressed to flattened laterally, mericarps rounded or acute dorsally, ribs 5, filiform, companion cells present in the pericarp, but vittae absent.
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Seeds
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Seed face plane to convex.
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Notes
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The name is derived from the Greek hydro, water, and kotyle, small cup, in reference to the peltate leaves of some species.
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Contributor
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Nancy Khan
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