# Small Lilly Pad Looking Plant



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Does anyone know what the plant in the image below is, or have a good recommendation for a lillypad looking plant that is really small.

IMG_2843_1_1 - Dendroboard Gallery


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## cschub13 (Apr 27, 2011)

Looks like duckweed.


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## Reef_Haven (Jan 19, 2011)

Could be salvinia or frogbit.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

The floating stuff? If it has little hairs on the leaves its probably salvinia, otherwise I'd go with frogbit. It looks too big to be the duckweed I'm familiar with.


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## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

I did some googling and it looks like frogbit can grow up to 3 inches across. I would like to have either duckweed or frogbit in my small pond in my viv. Can anyone confirm that size?


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## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Also does anyone have any they could sell?


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## Rusty_Shackleford (Sep 2, 2010)

Looks like frogbit to me


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

I'd strongly recommend that you don't let any duckweed come within a dozen miles of any water in your tank. That stuff is a noxious weed and about impossible to get rid of once you have it. 

I've never personally had any frogbit, though the stuff I've seen was roughly a couple inches around. I can't ship the salvinia that I have.


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## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Shinosuke said:


> I'd strongly recommend that you don't let any duckweed come within a dozen miles of any water in your tank. That stuff is a noxious weed and about impossible to get rid of once you have it.
> 
> I've never personally had any frogbit, though the stuff I've seen was roughly a couple inches around. I can't ship the salvinia that I have.


Can duckweed spread outside the confines of the pond? Is it capable of growing terrestrially?


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

Fact: If someone shot just one leaf of duckweed into space and it hit our sun it'd cover the surface of the sun within 11 months, effectively killing all life as we know it!

Actual fact: Nah, it just grows in water. In the right conditions (calm water that's high in nitrogen with plenty of bright light) it can double in mass every 2 days, though. If you try to take it out of your water and miss even ONE tiny bit (remember that we're talking about the worlds smallest flowering plant, here) it will come back just as strong as before.


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## inka4040 (Oct 14, 2010)

It's definitely salvinia. Look into the hydrocotyle family. Lots of floaters in different sizes that IMO look a lot more like lily pads than most others. Tripartita or sp. Japan are probably the smallest easily available ones. You can plant one end in the ground and let it spread across the surface, or just float it, and it'll put out new leaves in the correct orientation. 

Brazilian Pennywort - Hydrocotyle leucocephala picture by Quartermain - Photobucket

http://www.aquagreen.com.au/images/Hydrocotyle_tripartita_01.jpg


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## Jean Kaye (Aug 12, 2012)

It's salvinia. I'm not sure if you've seen it irl but it doesnt look like waterlily at all 

Depending on the size of the pond you could try:
Limnobium laevigatum
Hydrocotyle sp.

for a bit larger space I'd try Nymphoides indica. It grows larger but with frequent pruning/renewing it can be kept small. It is nearly impossible to kill and grows even on wet sand without water if needed. It looks exactly like waterlily with small starry flowers.


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