Plantae > Tracheophyta > Liliopsida > Commelinales > Pontederiaceae > Pontederia > Pontederia crassipes

Pontederia crassipes (common water hyacinth)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Eichhornia crassipes, commonly known as (common) water hyacinth, is an aquatic plant native to the Amazon basin, and is often considered a highly problematic invasive species outside its native range.
View Wikipedia Record: Pontederia crassipes

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Pontederia crassipes

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Low
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [2]  Eating the plant, which is reported to contain HCN, alkaloid, and triterpenoid, may induce itching; Fresh plants contain prickly crystals; Plants sprayed with 2,4-D may accumulate lethal doses of nitrates;
Leaf Type [3]  Evergreen
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [2]  Water hyacinths are potentially an excellent source of biomass. Through an anaerobic fermentation process, polluted hyacinths can be converted to the natural gas methane - a costly process that may become more economical as supplies of underground natural gas are depleted; Dried and cleansed plants can be used as fertilizer and plant mulch; Eventually, living aquatic plants might serve aboard long-distance manned spacecraft, absorbing wastes and converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, then being themselves converted into food; The plant can be cultivated for use in wastewater treatment, and can be incorporated into a system where the biomass is harvested for fuel production; Since this biomass is a by-product of wastewater treatment, it has a positive environmental impact, and thus poses no threat as competitor to food, feed, or fibre-producing plants; Wilted water hyacinth, mixed with earth, cow dung, and woodashes in the Chinese compost fashion, can yield useful compost in just two months; Although potential yields are incredible, so are the costs of removal or attempted eradication of this water weed. Standing crops have been estimated to produce 100-120 tonnes per hectare per year;. Under ideal conditions, each plant can produce 248 offspring in 90 days; Water hyacinth roots naturally absorb pollutants, including such toxic chemicals as lead, mercury, and strontium 90 (as well as some organic compounds believed to be carcinogenic) in concentrations 10,000 times that in the surrounding water; In Africa, fresh plants are used as cushions in canoes and to plug holes in charcoal sacks;
View Plants For A Future Record : Pontederia crassipes

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Predators

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 5Feeding Habits and Trophic Niche Overlap of Aquatic Orthoptera Associated with Macrophytes, Soledad Capello, Mercedes Marchese, and María L. de Wysiecki, Zoological Studies 51(1): 51-58 (2012)
♦ 6HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 7del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 8Feeding Habits of Capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, Linnaeus 1766), in the Ecological Reserve of Taim (ESEC - Taim) - South of Brazil, Lucélia do Valle Borges and Ioni Gonçalves Colares, Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology, Vol.50, n. 3 : pp.409-416 May 2007
♦ 9Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
♦ 10Seasonal Variation in Feeding Behaviour of Indian Roofed Turtle, Pangshura tectum in Bangladesh, Md. Lokman Hossain, Shorab Uddin Sarker and Noor Jahan Sarker, Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences 15 (1) 53-58 June 2008
♦ 11Abundance of food plant species and food habits of Rhinoceros unicornis Linn. in Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam, India, Pradip Konwar, Malabika Kakati Saikia & P.K. Saikia, Journal of Threatened Taxa | September 2009 | 1(9): 457-460
♦ 12Food Plants Eaten by Amazonian Manatees (Trichechus inunguis, Mammalia : Sirenia), Ioni G. Colares and Elton P. Colares, Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology, Vol. 45, N. 1 : pp. 67 - 72, March, 2002
♦ 13Consumption of Aquatic Plants by the West Indian Manatee, Kay Etheridge, G. B. Rathbun, J. A. Powell, and H. I. Kochman, J. Aquat. Plant Manage. 23: 21-25 (1985)
♦ 14Trichechus senegalensis, Sandra L. Husar, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 89, pp. 1-3 (1978)
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0