Description
• Free floating aquatic fern
• Leaves have water-repellent hairs
• Young leaves oval and flat on water, older leaves spongy and folded along the mid-rib
• Long filament-like roots
Flowering Times
• Does not flower or produce seeds
Control Measure
• Physical – remove by hand or machine
• Herbicides
• Biological – in specific situations only
Problems
• Grows extremely rapidly
• Forms dense mats smothering other aquatic vegetation
• Encourages mosquito breeding
• Reproduces vegetatively from fragments