Sunday 19 May
Common duckweed (Lemna gibba)
Common duckweed fact file
- Description
- Biology
- Range
- Habitat
- Status
- Threats
- Conservation
- Find out more
- Glossary
- References
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Common duckweed description
| Kingdom | Plantae |
| Phylum | Tracheophyta |
| Class | Liliopsida |
| Order | Arales |
| Family | Lemnaceae |
| Genus | Lemna (1) |
This duckweed is one of Britain's most common small water plants, which forms familiar green mats covering stagnant water bodies (4). It has a simple plant body, known as a thallus, which floats on the surface of the water and measures up to five millimetres in diameter (2). A single root hangs down into the water (2).
- Also known as
- fat duckweed.
- Synonyms
- Lemna cordata, Lemna parodiana, Lenticula gibba, Lenticula gibbosa, Limna cordata, Limna parodiana, Telmatophace gibba, Telmatophace gibbosa.
- French
- Lenticule Bossue, Lentille Bossue.
-
Plantlife International - The Wild-Plant Conservation Charity:
www.plantlife.org.uk -
Botanical Society of the British Isles:
www.bsbi.org.uk - Thallus
- Type of simple plant body that does not have stems, leaves and roots.
- Vegetative reproduction
- Type of asexual reproduction (reproduction without recombination of genetic material) that results in the propagation of plants using only the vegetative tissues such as leaves or stems. The resulting plant is genetically identical to the original plant. A well-known example of this is the reproduction of strawberry plants from 'runners'.
-
IUCN Red List (June, 2011)
http://www.iucnredlist.org - Clapham, A.R., Tutin, T.G. and Moore, D.M. (1987) Flora of the British Isles. 3rd Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Preston, C.D., Pearman, D.A. and Dines, T.D. (2002) The New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Mabey, R. (1996) Flora Britannica. Sinclair-Stevenson, London.
- Grigson, G. (1996) The Englishman’s Flora. Helicon, Oxford.
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Related species
Common duckweed biology
This species spreads mainly through vegetative reproduction (3), but flowers are occasionally produced in shallow water exposed to the full sun (2). When covering the entire surface of a pond, it can make the water appear solid, and in parts of the north-west of England children were scared away from such ponds by the myth of Jenny Green-teeth, a pond elf or monster whose presence was indicated by duckweed; she was said to lure children into ponds and drown them (5).
TopCommon duckweed range
Widespread throughout Britain, but is absent from much of Scotland and Shetland (2). Elsewhere the species has a very wide global distribution, absent only from polar areas and the tropics (2).
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Species with a similar range
|
You can view distribution information for this species at the National Biodiversity Network Gateway. |
Common duckweed habitat
Found in a wide range of still or slow-flowing water bodies, common duckweed can also occur on mud or damp rocks (3).
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Species found in a similar habitat
Common duckweed status
Common duckweed is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List (1).
Common duckweed threats
Not currently threatened.
TopCommon duckweed conservation
Not relevant.
|
|
There may be further information about this species available via the National Biodiversity Network Gateway. |
Find out more
For more information on British plants and their conservation see
Authentication
This information is awaiting authentication by a species expert, and will be updated as soon as possible. If you are able to help please contact:
arkive@wildscreen.org.uk
Glossary
References
More »Related species
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Common duckweed at water surface
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