Aquatic plant - Definition and Overview

Aquatic plants, also called hydrophytic plants or hydrophytes. Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in, on, or next to water, that can only grow either submerged or partially submerged in water.

Aquatic vascular plants come from both the monocot and dicot families and there are also a number of aquatic ferns. Seaweeds are not vascular plants, they are multicellular marine algae.

Many species of aquatic plant are invasive species in different parts of the world, aquatic plants make particularly good weeds because they can reproduce vegetatively from fragments.

General reference

Cook, C.D.K. (ed). 1974. Water Plants of the World. Dr W Junk Publishers, The Hague. ISBN: 90 6193 024 3