Interest in aquariums and home ponds is typical of many people. Children especially like to watch the life of underwater inhabitants. To decorate water corners, people use various decorative elements. But the aquarium looks best when it is planted with greenery. For these purposes, different plants are used. One of the most interesting among them is rootless wolfia.
general description
Absolutely inconspicuous plant. It looks like a tiny dark green ball. It is slightly flattened from the sides. The dimensions are so small that it is very difficult to see this plant well without a microscope. The ball reaches a length of 1.5 mm, and its width is not more than 1 mm. For comparison, you can imagine that up to 30 green balls are placed on a match head.
Wolfless rootless is, at first glance, a clot freely floating in water. However, she has all the organs, including a tiny trunk. During flowering, tiny flowers with a pestle and stamen appear on it. It is completely impossible to see without a microscope. For the layman, this is just duckweed. In fact, this is her close relative, who has her own characteristics.
Structure
Specialists studied rootless wolfia and came to the conclusion that it is a rather complex plant organism. In addition to the stem, she has stomata. That is, the plant has the ability to photosynthesis. It produces oxygen and absorbs carbon dioxide. Of course, its dimensions are small, but in one pond there are tens and hundreds of thousands of such “balls”.
Where is the plant distributed?
Wolfless rootless is a subtropical plant. That is, for the most part it is found in the southern latitudes. In total, scientists have discovered more than 16 species that are common in calm reservoirs of Africa, Asia and America. In our latitudes only one species was discovered and studied - Wolfia arrhiza. An interesting plant can become a pond decoration at your cottage.
Wolfia rootless algae floats on the surface of a reservoir. Moreover, it extracts all the nutrients directly from the water. The optimum temperature for it is the range + 24 … + 28 degrees. Quite calmly, it can withstand a decrease to +12 o C. If it gets even colder, the plant will die.
How the plant propagates
Wolfless rootless, photo of which allows us to trace the analogy with duckweed, reproduces in two ways. This explains its rapid spread on the water surface, especially under favorable environmental conditions.
- The division of the mother plant into several parts.
- The formation of processes that, upon reaching maturity, disappear and begin an independent life. So the new rootless wolfia is born.
Plants for ponds are often selected according to two criteria. The plant is unpretentious in maintenance and multiplies very quickly. The surface of plants is somewhat sticky, so any item dropped into the water will be instantly covered with green balls. This allows them to easily move from place to place. This is especially true of southern, tropical regions. Here, every standing pond is covered with a green film.
Fish food
If a person uses this plant today as exclusively decorative, then in nature he has other functions. In particular, green balls serve as food for many fish species. A modest green bulb is rich in nutrients. It contains 60% starch and 20% fat, 10% protein and carbohydrates each. In large quantities, it contains vitamins A, C, B and PP.
In this regard, aquarists adapted the plant not only to decorate the aquarium, but also for fish food. Barbs and goldfish, as well as African cichlids, eat the green mass with great pleasure. Professional aquarists note that when adding wolfia to the diet, fish feel much better. Their color becomes brighter, they reproduce well.
Beneficial features
It should be noted that not only fish are eaten by wolfia. A tiny plant contains as much protein as soybeans. In the homeland even cakes are baked from it. The filtration ability of wolfia is so strong that it can be used as a cleaner for industrial sedimentation tanks. It actively purifies water from salts of heavy metals. Today it has become popular to grow wolfia in landscape ponds and parks.
