# Lake plant ID?



## sunsailor (Jun 12, 2009)

I would like to know the identity of the aquatic plant in the foreground. (The back one is bladderwort.) Thanks


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## sunsailor (Jun 12, 2009)

Here's a higher resolution photo.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Looks like you have 2 species there.

The bigger one in the last picture is a myriophyllum species, the one in the background looks like a utricularia species, but a better picture of the second plant is needed to confirm.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

The plant in front has alternate leaves...


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

It looks like a _Proserpinaca_.


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## sunsailor (Jun 12, 2009)

Thanks. Definitely 2 species, and I have no problem with the bladderwort in the background. However, I wasn't able match the foreground specimen with any photos I saw of *myriophyllum* or _proserpinaca_. Can you suggest a resource I could check out? BobF


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

The one is a bladderwort that will consume your tank. It grows like crazy. Here is a description and source.

Utricularia foliosa--Whatever this plant is doing, it is doing it right because it has a large range thoughout the Americas and Africa. The species is readily identified because its large stolons are flattened and covered with a disgusting gelatinous goo. The fruit look like little grapes, and float the water surface. This plant can become tremendously large, and dominates the ponds it calls home. From http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq5666.html


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## Esteroali (Oct 1, 2007)

*Bladderwort*

Didn't I send you some of that nasty stuff last year, bladderwort??
I think the other plant is Myriophyllum


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

It may look like a Myriophyllum, and it is in the same family, but _Proserpinaca_ it is. The former have leaves in whorls while the latter have alternate leaves. Can they be so fine-leaved? Apparently so. Some friends and I found a large local population around here last summer; some of it was fully emersed like what you'll see in the following link and some looked rather like what you see in the Plant Finder here. To everyone's surprise, it started growing like what Bob presented in the photograph above. I later found a locally collected herbarium specimen with submersed leaves just like it, labled as _P. palustris_. Is the one in the PF (sold by Tropica) a different variety? Could be. There are three in the US from what I've read and perhaps more elsewhere. I'm not sure if the Tropica stuff will grow finer after some time or not, as I kept it only briefly. However, I did see stems with fully emersed and almost entire leaves all the way to very fine and everything in between, sometimes all on the same stem (rising/falling water levels).

There is a _P. pectinata_ with leaves that are always like this above water, finer below it of course:
http://www.alabamaplants.com/Greenalt/Proserpinaca_pectinata_page.html

_P. palustris_:
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=PRPA3

So, the emersed leaves are the easiest way to tell the two apart. They are apparently quite similar submersed. Got any photos of it emersed?


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## Esteroali (Oct 1, 2007)

I stand corrected and enlightened! I still want yoou to come to SW Florida for a field trip.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

Me too.  I can't just yet though.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

It always amazes me how different the plants look emersed. I'd never recognize some of them!


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