Hydrocleys nymphoides
Photo: Matt Salmond
Unwanted Organism, National Pest Plant Accord
Water poppy
- Scientific Name
- Hydrocleys nymphoides
- Origin
- Native to tropical South America
- Type
- Weed
- Plant Life-form Type
- Floating-leaved
- Taxonomy
- (Humb. et Bonpl.) Buchneau
- Presence
- Locally naturalised, eradicated from most known sites, first record from Te Aroha, Waikato in 1914
- Habitat
- Still and flowing water bodies
- Temperature (°C)
- Oct-22
- pH range
- 6.8 - 7.2
- Hardness (ppm)
- 50 - 200
- Light
- Strong
- Height
- 100mm
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Notes
- Problem weed in still and flowing water bodies, poor dispersal capacity has limited spread. Introduced into NZ now an aggressive coloniser of ponds streams farm dams & lake margins to a depth of 2 metres. Found Rotorua Waikato Auckland Lake Rotoehu
- Propagation
- Vegetative spread by stolon fragments, deliberate planting
- Features
- Underwater stem is elastic, creeping, or floating near the water surface. Leaves and roots attached at each node along the stem. Leaf is a bright glossy green, oval, 7 cm long, and with an inflated main vein on the underside. The leaf sinus is shallow. Flowers consist of 3 yellow petals with a purple centre (filaments) and are up to 8 cm across.
- Source
- TIFBIS
- Regional
- Regional Pest Management Strategy: AUK, BOP, NTL, WKO.