Lemna minor

Small duckweed ( Lemna minor)

The Small duckweed ( Lemna minor L. ) is one of seven species of the genus duckweed ( Lemna ), the family of the Araceae (formerly Lemnaceae ) recently will be provided.

Description

Duckweed usually consist of one or more " leaves " (actually phylloclades ) containing air-filled cavities, with the help of which they float freely on or just below the water surface. From there, a root lowers down into the water, can be taken with the minerals, and the like a boat keel contributes to floating stability of the plant. Special cells called Idioplasten are rich in Oxalatnadeln and perhaps serve to protect against slugs.

The Small duckweed blooms only rarely with us. The flowers are " pollen disk flowers " with water pollination. About water flowering learn a random pollination by water striders, spiders and snails. The flowers are greatly reduced and very small; the male consist of only one stamen, the female only of a stamp with a funnel-shaped scar. The flowering period extends from May to June.

The fruits are one-to mehrsamige nuts. The approximately 1 mm long seeds undergo a swimming propagation.

The Small Duckweed reproduces mainly asexually by budding, remain attached to the mother plant in the laterally growing shoots either or become self-employed. In the fall of stores starch, and then falls to the frost-free ground for overwintering.

Popularization

The Small Duckweed is native to the temperate regions of North America, Europe, Africa and West Asia; in Australia and New Zealand it is naturalized. In Europe, their occurrence extends northward to about 66 degrees north latitude.

Locations

The Small Duckweed is common and frequently on standing water, such as ponds and pools, they soon completely covered with a sufficiently large supply of nutrients with about three millimeters long and oblong- oval floating leaves; it forms a plant community (sometimes along with other types of duckweed family). This occurs only a little light into the water, what hinders submerged plants occurring in the growth and for example, the water temperature influences.

Naming and use

In the vernacular is called the Small duckweed and duckweed plants in general as duckweed duckweed duckweed or because it serves ducks and geese, but also fish as a welcome source of food. Your dry substance is actually very rich in starch and protein and rohfaserarm. Therefore / she was even used as cattle feed. The protein of the Lesser Duckweed is with the soybean comparable in the composition of its amino acids and because of its high content of trace elements. Therefore, the type is also recommended as wild vegetables for humans. Since the plant effectively stores minerals, but can, for example, their content of radium 100-600 times as high as in the water that surrounds them. For example, if Ducks eat mostly water from these lenses, the radium concentration may be increased up to 10 times and be a potential danger for the man who takes such meat to be in their flesh.