Water Chickweed - Stellaria aquatica

Description

Medium height, straggly plant stems stickily hairy above. Flowers white, 14 to 15 mm, the five petals cleft to the base, longer than the sepals and with 5 styles.

Similar Species

other Chickweeds

Identification difficulty
ID checklist (your specimen should have all of these features)

5 styles; petals longer than sepals; split almost to base ('bifid')

Recording advice

Close up of flowers, and general photo of plant in its habitat

Habitat

Wet habitats, water margins, marshes and wet ditches.

When to see it

June to October.

Life History

Perennial.

UK Status

Quite frequent in England at least.

VC55 Status

Quite frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 200 of the 617 tetrads.

In the current checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as Native and locally frequent

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2020+ | 2015-2019 | pre-2015

UK Map

Species profile

Common names
Water Chickweed
Species group:
Wildflowers
Kingdom:
Plantae
Order:
Caryophyllales
Family:
Caryophyllaceae
Records on NatureSpot:
58
First record:
23/06/2006 (Calow, Graham)
Last record:
29/09/2022 (Cann, Alan)

Total records by month

% of records within its species group

10km squares with records

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