Water hyacinth Eichhornia crassipes

Description

Water hyacinth is an aquatic plant, in most cases floating, which is native to the Amazon region. It is generally regarded as the world’s most troublesome invasive alien species in water bodies. It thrives in warm climatic conditions. In Europe, the species is established in Portugal (including the Azores), Spain and Italy.

Source: FinBIF species descriptions
Description text authors:

Terho Hyvönen (LUKE) and Arto Kurtto (LUOMUS) – 15 March 2016 – published 18 March 2016.

CC BY 4.0

Growing form

A free-floating aquatic stoloniferous herb growing generally to 0.5 m in height and usually forming dense floating mats. The plant forms clones consisting of individual rosettes each with up to ten expanded leaves arranged spirally and separated by very short internodes.

Source: Pinkka e-learning: Tropical Plants of Economic Importance (AGRI-247) - Angiosperms: monocots CC BY 4.0

The map represents observations of this taxon, but it may not be used as a distribution map.

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Observations
  • Total squares
Checklist
FinBIF master checklist
Scientific name
Eichhornia crassipes
Author
(Mart.) Solms
Vernacular names
  • kellusvesihyasintti (Finnish)
  • vattenhyacint (Swedish)
  • Water hyacinth (English)
Identifier
http://tun.fi/MX.254329
Taxon rank
species
This species is invasive
EstablishmentDoes not occur in the wild in Finland
Regulatory Status
  • Invasive alien species of Union concern (EU 2016/1141; 2017/1263; 2019/1262; 2022/1203) ?
DNA barcode sequences
Eichhornia crassipes
13 public records
Informal groups
  • Vascular plants