DUCKWEED 149 



The flower, which is rare, is enclosed in a membranous spathe, and 

 is formed in a marginal depression in the frond. There are 2 stamens 

 altogether, each a male flower, with slender anther -stalks, and they 

 develop in succession. The style is long, the anthers clidymous. The 

 flowers are reduced to a spathe-like bract, the stamens and pistil in 

 separate flowers. 



The plant floats on the surface, being an aquatic. Flowers may be 

 sought in June and July. It is a herbaceous annual, and propagated 

 by offsets, or divisions of the frond. 



When it flowers several bloom at once. The flowers are uni- 

 sexual and monoecious. They are borne in grooves at the margin 

 of the frond -like stems, with 2 male flowers with i stamen each, 

 only developed in succession, and i female flower of i carpel. 

 The anther -stalks are slender, the style is long. The anthers 

 are 2 -celled and open transversely and in pairs, with prickly 

 pollen. The plant is adapted to pollination by water- insects, but 

 flowers are rare. The stigma is mature first, but the anthers soon 

 open. 



The seeds are dispersed by water, sinking to the bottom in autumn, 

 and remaining during the winter when germinating, to rise in spring, 

 and grow in summer. Lesser Duckweed is aquatic. 



Two fungi infest it: Reessia amceboidea, which is rare, and Olpidium 

 lemncc. A beetle, Donacia lemnce, the small China Mask (Catoclysta 

 lemnata\ a Heteropterous insect, Hebrus pusillus, and a fly, Hydrellia 

 albilabris, are found on it. 



Lemna, Theophrastus, is the Greek name for Duckweed, and minor 

 refers to its small-sized frond. 



Lesser Duckweed is called Creed, Dig-meat, Duck- Meat, Duck- 

 pond Weed, Duckweed, Duke's Meat, Endmete, Greeds, Greens, 

 Groves, Grozens, Jenny Green-teeth, Water Lentils, Mardling Swim- 

 ming Herb, Toadspit. Jenny Green-teeth was also the name of a 

 well-known Lancashire boggart who was supposed to haunt pits and 

 pools, and from whom it has probably been transferred to the plant. 

 It is called "in Latin Lens palustris or lacustris, in Shoppes Lenticula 

 aqua, in English W'ater Lentils, in High Douch Lue Sen, in base 

 Almaigne Water Simeen ". 



It is valuable as food for waterfowl, and for aquaria, aerating the 

 water. 1 



1 The arrangement of the chlorophyll granules is interesting. In darkness they are ranged along the 

 side and inner walls of the cells, in direct sunlight they lie along the lateral walls, where they are less 

 exposed to intense light, whilst when the light is diffused they lie along the sides and the inner walls. 



