Eichhornia crassipes
Notifiable Organism, Unwanted Organism, National Interest Pest Response, National Pest Plant Accord
Water hyacinth
- Scientific Name
- Eichhornia crassipes
- Origin
- Sotuh America, Amazon basin, western Brazil
- Type
- Weed
- Plant Life-form Type
- Free-floating
- Taxonomy
- (Mart.) Solms-Laub.
- Presence
- Locally naturalised, subject to a national eradication programme since 1950's, first record from Rotorua in 1950
- Habitat
- Still and slow flowing water bodies in warm areas
- Temperature (°C)
- 20 - 26
- pH range
- 6.8 - 7.2
- Hardness (ppm)
- 30 - 150
- Light
- Low - High
- Height
- 200mm
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Notes
- A major weed in many warm temperate and tropical countries. Now universal in most temperate & tropical waterways. A pest plant. Not suitable for indoor aquaria. Should not be held by aquarists.
- Propagation
- Older stolons between individual plants decay to release young plants. Also spreads by seed
- Features
- Free floating perennial herb. Plants are stoloniferous with daughter plants often attached. Leaves are bright green, often with a spongy inflated petiole. Roots are long and finely divided, and are bright purple when young before becoming black. Flowers are large (7 cm in diameter) in a spike of up to 10 flowers. They are blue-purple with a central yellow eye surrounded by a dark ring on the uppermost petal.
- Source
- TIFBIS
- Regional
- Regional Pest Management Strategy: NTL, AUK.