Not just boring, boring duckweed

Duckweeds

Duckweeds have a reputation for being dull, and a disaster for your pond – but duckweeds are not all bad.

First, despite being tiny, they provide homes for animals. In Britain, there’s a couple of duckweed specialists: the Duckweed Weevil, a tiny beetle with a Pinnochio-like nose  whose larvae burrow into the fronds, and the Small China Mark, a moth whose larvae live amongst the duckweeds and make a tubular case from the individual leaves. Check out pictures of the Small China Mark here.

The Duckweed Weevil

And duckweeds are not just one kind of plant. Here in Britain we have 5 native species including the worlds smallest flowering plant – Rootless Duckweed – so small it looks like a green speck of dust.

Our native species are below – click them for a photo each:

Common Duckweed – (botanically Lemna minor)

Ivy-leaved Duckweed (Lemna trisulca)

Great Duckweed (Spirodela polyrhiza)

Fat Duckweed (Lemna gibba)

Rootless Duckweed (Wollfia arrhiza)

We also have two introduced species – one now quite widespread which comes from North America originally, Least Duckweed, and a new introduction, just discovered in Britain, called Red Duckweed. You need to be pretty hot on your duckweeds to be able to tell them from the two native species they resemble.

Anyone for duckweed?

Duckweeds: not usually very popular

You don’t often come across people who are duckweed fans but here’s someone who is: Doug Green from Ontario, Canada.

He notes:

‘Duckweed is perfect fish food, easy to grow and great for the pond.’

And how do you get duckweed in your pond?

‘….a single handfull will populate most ponds quite quickly (as long as there are no large fish there to eat it).’

So all you budding duckweed fans – its easy.