Myriophyllum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| iMyriophyllum | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Myriophyllum aquaticum
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
See text |
Myriophyllum (water milfoil) is a genus of about 45 species of freshwater aquatic plants, with a cosmopolitan distribution. Its name comes from Greek, "myri" meaning "too many to count", and "phyll", meaning "leaf".
These submersed aquatic plants have whorled leaves that are finely, pinnately divided. The leaves above the water are stiffer and smaller than the submerged leaves on the same plant. The flowers are small with four petals and are borne in the leaf axils or in a terminal, emergent spike.
Waterfowl eat the fruits and leaves and muskrats eat the entire plant.
It has a long soft but fairly brittle stem. The leaves of the plant only present near surface of the water, while flowers are formed above the surface of the pond.
Various Species of Water milfoil have become invasive species in water bodies of nearly every state in the continental U.S. Furthermore, a common species, Eurasian Water Milfoil, is often controlled with pesticides containing the chemical Diquat Dibromide.
- Selected species
- Myriophyllum alterniflorum
- Myriophyllum aquaticum
- Myriophyllum diccocum
- Myriophyllum elatinoides
- Myriophyllum farwellii
- Myriophyllum heterophyllum
- Myriophyllum hippuroides
- Myriophyllum humile
- Myriophyllum laxum
- Myriophyllum matogrossense
- Myriophyllum pinnatum
- Myriophyllum quitense
- Myriophyllum sibiricum
- Myriophyllum spicatum
- Myriophyllum tenellum
- Myriophyllum tuberculatum
- Myriophyllum ussuriense
- Myriophyllum variifolium
- Myriophyllum verrucosum
- Myriophyllum verticillatum
 |
This plant article is a stub. Please help Wikipedia grow by expanding it. |
