Nature Photo Challenge #21: Water Plants

This week Denzil challenges us to submit pictures of water plants.

We have a pond on our farm.  The native plants around it seem pretty nondescript, but when you look at them close up, some are really beautiful.

First is Blue Waterleaf, Hydrolea ovata.  It grows about a foot high, right at the water’s edge. I am always glad to find blue flowers, but this one does have very thin unobtrusive thorns that you don’t notice, until you try to grab the plants or walk through a patch of it.  Bees and wasps love it, and it is nice to sit in the shade on a hot afternoon, and listen to them buzz around.  When the heavy carpenter bees land on a bloom, their weight immediately causes it to sag and flip over, making it hard to get a nice clear picture. 🙂

I believe this is a Feather-legged Scoliid Wasp.
Blue Waterleaf, Hydrolea ovata.
A Carpenter Bee approaches.

Other plants grow up to a meter tall, with small yellow blossoms. 

Smartweed and Primrose Willow at the pond’s edge.

Angle-stem Primrose Willow, Ludwigia leptocarpa.

It took me forever to figure out that this is only one of three similar species in the Primrose-Willow (Ludwigia) family, growing intertwined in one small area.  The good thing was that as I studied the plants over a month, I found all kinds of creatures visiting them, and I wrote about that in much more detail here.

A water plant I love for its name is Redwhisker Clammyweed (Polanisia dodecandra).  I came across it in the Llano River in Central Texas, on a September day when the light was just right!

Llano River, Texas, Sept. 2020.

Redwhisker Clammyweed, Llano, TX.

Bee leaving the clammyweed.

Do you have some pictures of water plants sitting in your files?  In the water or near the water?  Fresh water or ocean?  We would love for you to join the challenge and post your pictures too!  🙂

 

 

 

Category : plants
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