Ludwigia prostrata Roxb.

Annual herb 0.1-0.6 m, subglabrous, often reddish-tinged. Leaves elliptic or narrowly elliptic, 1-13 by 0.3-2.7 cm, glabrous or with a few minute hairs along the veins, narrowly cuneate at the base, apex acute; submarginal vein weakly developed; petioles 4-25 mm, distinct. Sepals 4, deltoid, 1.3-2.5 by 0.7-1.1 mm, glabrous. Petals yellow, narrowly spatulate, 1.3-2.2 by 0.4-0.9 mm. Stamens 4; filaments 0.8-1.2 mm; anthers 0.4-0.5 mm wide, broader than long, closely appressed to the stigma and shedding pollen directly on it at anthesis. Pollen shed in tetrads. Disk slightly elevated, glabrous. Style c. 1 mm; stigma globose, c. 0.5 mm, the upper half receptive. Capsule thin-walled, glabrous, 12-22 by 0.8-1 mm, ±4-angled, pale brown, readily and irregularly loculicidal, the seeds showing plainly as indentations in the walls at maturity. Seeds uniseriate in each cell, free, pale brown, speckled or striped transversely with narrow darker brown stripes, plump, ovoid, apiculate at one end, 0.5-0.6 by 0.3 mm; raphe narrow, linear. Gametic chromosome number, n = 8.

It is a tropical and subtropical plant. It grows in wet places such as rice paddies and flood plains from near sea level to 800 m above sea level in southern China. It grows in wetlands. In Yunnan.

The young leafy shoots are eaten fried or cooked with other vegetables.