Oxalis natans

Oxalis natans is an aquatic perennial that grows in slow flowing streams, seasonal pools and even some older farm dams.

It grows several soft, flexuous stems, bending and moving in their aquatic surroundings while holding clusters of pale green, rounded to heart-shaped, trifoliolate leaves and single white flowers floating upon the stream surface.

The corolla of the flower has the form of a shallow cup, yellow on the inside with the five spreading petal lobes being white. Flowering occurs during spring.

The species distribution is quite restricted in the Western Cape from Piketberg to Worcester and a separate population on part of the Cape Peninsula. 

The habitat is seasonal pools and streams of the Cape coastal plain. The species is considered critically threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century, due to urban development, farming and impact from high human population density. There may come a time when only photos of these flowers will remain to remind of yet another extinct species (Manning, 2007; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; www.iucnredlist.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).