Lindernia anagallis

The name Lindernia anagallis became known in the aquarium hobby a few years ago because a peppermint-scented stem plant came into the aquarium plant trade under this name. It later turned out that this plant is not L. anagallis but a Clinopodium species, see Clinopodium cf. brownei.¹

We have no information on whether true Lindernia anagallis is also cultivated as an aquarium plant or is suitable for it.

This Lindernia species is distributed in tropical and subtropical Asia and in Australia. In the wild it is an annual plant and colonises various wet places such as forest and stream margins or rice fields up to an altitude of approx. 1,500 m above sea level.²

L. anagallis develops creeping, richly branched stems. The leaves are arranged oppositely on the stem, shortly stalked or almost sessile, triangular-ovate, ovate or oblong, 0.4 to 2 cm long and 0.7 to 1 cm wide, with a truncate to slightly heart-shaped base. The leaf margin is shallowly crenate, the leaf tip rounded to pointed.²

Solitary flowers with a stalk 6 to 10 mm long develop in the leaf axils. The corolla lobes are white or light purple.²