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Pontederia crassipes
Also called Water Hyacinth
In Singapore: Water Hyacinth, Lilac Devil, Keladi Bunting, Kemeling Telur, 凤眼蓝 (Naturalised in Singapore)
Common water hyacinth is a fast-growing, free-floating aquatic plant from tropical South America, prized for its lavender flowers but notorious as an invasive weed. It needs warm, still or slow water with plenty of sun and is killed by frost.
Pontederia crassipes (formerly Eichhornia crassipes), commonly known as common water hyacinth, is an aquatic plant native to South America, naturalized throughout the world, and often invasive outside its native range. It is the sole species of the subgenus Oshunae within the genus Pontederia. Anecdotally, it is known as the "terror of Bengal" due to its invasive growth tendencies.
Its habitat ranges from tropical desert to subtropical or warm, temperate desert to rainforest zones. The temperature tolerance of the water hyacinth is:
Pontederia azurea · Water hyacinths · Monochoria korsakowii · Pontederia vaginalis · Pickerelweed · Pontederia sagittata · Pickerelweed
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pontederia crassipes by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
