A somewhat uncommon plant in western Pennsylvania. It blooms from May into early June. To judge by the way it grew here in Beechview, it likes moist soil at the edge of the woods. The family resemblance to the more common Virginia Waterleaf is obvious, but the flowers of Appendaged Waterleaf are a middle blue or blue-violet color, and the leaves are maple-shaped.
Gray describes the genus and the species:
HYDROPHYLLUM [Tourn.] L. WATERLEAF. Calyx 5-parted,
sometimes with a small appendage in each sinus, early
open in the bud. Corolla bell-shaped, 5-cleft; the
lobes convolute in the bud: the tube furnished with 5
longitudinal linear appendages opposite the lobes,
forming a nectariferous groove. Stamens and style
mostly exserted; lilainents more or less bearded.
Ovary bristly hairy (as is usual in the family); the
placentae soon free from the walls except at the top
and bottom. Capsule ripening 1-4 seeds,
spherical.—Perennials, with petioled ample leaves, and
wvhite or bluish-purple cymose-clustered flowers.
(Name formed of hydor, water, and phyllon, leaf; of no
obvious application.)
H. appendiculatum Michx. Hairy; stem-leaves
palmately 5-lobed, rounded, the lobes toothed and
pointed, the lowest pinnately divided; cymes rather
loosely flowered; filiform pedicels and calyx
bristly-hairy. Damp woods, N. Y. and Ont. to Minn.,
and southw. May, June.