Flora of New Zealand Series

Duckweed.

Type locality: Europe.

Platelets to 6 × 4 mm., but us. much smaller, suborbicular to elliptic-obovate, nearly symmetric; dorsal surface green, flat to slightly convex, obscurely 3-veined; ventral surface flat to slightly convex, occ. tinged with red or purple. Root single, long, its proximal part lying in a furrow in the frond tissue; root-cap conspicuous. Spathe open at top. Ovule solitary. Fr. ovoid, wingless, projecting beyond the pouch margin. Seed obovate, flattened, smooth; operculum ± flattened.

DIST.: N., S.

Found in almost all temperate and tropical regions.

Floating on the surface of still, fertile water.

FL. 11–12–(2).

Daubs (loc. cit.) examined N.Z. specimens collected by Kirk and by Setchell and placed them as L. minor. Hegelmaier (Die Lemnaceen 1868 and Engl. Bot. Jb. 21, 1895) lists four other spp. for N.Z.: L. gibba L. (1895,  289); L. trisulca L. (1868,  135); L. disperma Hegelm. var. fallax Hegelm. (1895,  291, very doubtfully); L. paucicostata Hegelm. (1895,  296). None of these records has been confirmed by recent work.