Pilularia globulifera Pillwort

Pilularia globulifera
©Bob Gibbons/Plantlife

This tiny plant is a type of creeping fern that grows in muddy ponds and places that are underwater in winter but dry mud in summer, typically near the edges of small field ponds where livestock graze.

It is hard to spot because it has thin, grass-like leaves and often grows with water grasses or small rushes. The ‘pills’ are tiny round spore cases at the bases of the stems.

Continuing threats to its recovery are water pollution, particularly by fertilisers, which encourage the growth of coarse plants; the decline of cattle grazing and the resultant loss of trampling; drainage; the ploughing of old pastures; and invasion by the vigorous non-native water plant New Zealand Pigmyweed (Crassula helmsii). It can still be found at a number of sites scattered across Britain, but is internationally threatened, as it is declining across its whole European range

Classified as Near Threatened.