A flower growing on water. Indoor plants in bottles and jars: how to grow plants in water. Features of the habitat

Despite their fragile appearance, they can adapt to almost any living conditions: they grow in deserts, on trees, on rocky surfaces, and even break through asphalt. Of course, there are also aquatic plants. Flowers on the water attract us with their unusually beautiful appearance and originality of arrangement.

Features of the habitat

There are 5 zones of growth of aquatic plants:

1. Deep water zone- an area up to 120 cm deep. Adapting to such an environment, plants take root in the soil of the reservoir, and their leaves are on the surface of the water. The most famous representative of the zone is.
2. Shallow zone- an area with a depth of 20 to 40 cm. The roots of plants in this zone are located under water, but most of the shoots grow above water. These include reeds and rushes.
3. Swamp zone- a zone with a depth of up to 20 cm. Plants grow in the hydromotor edge of the pond, which means that the water does not have a constant level.
4. Wet area. Plants are located outside the water; they can withstand long periods of flooding, but prolonged drought is completely undesirable for them.
5. Garden area- an area adjacent to a body of water.

The first, deep-sea zone deserves our attention more than the rest, since the plants growing in this zone are arranged in a very interesting way: the flowers seem to lie on the water, and everything else is hidden from the human eye.

Water nymph - water lily

Water lily, also known as nymphea, also known as water lily, is the most famous and probably the most beautiful water flower. Delicate pink, white and yellow petals sway quietly on the water, making everyone who sees them admire them. According to Greek mythology, nymphs were the name for the deities of nature: forests, rivers, mountains, so it is not strange that the nymphaeum is so beautiful and majestic.

Lotus

Externally, this beautiful flower is very similar to a water lily. Not everyone is able to distinguish them at first glance, but meanwhile, the difference is quite big. The water lily, which unites 70 species, belongs to the Nymphaeaceae family, and the lotus is the only representative of the Lotus family and is divided into only two species. But the main difference is that the lotus flower has a barrel-shaped pistil built into the open receptacle, and the stamens are thread-like, unlike the lamellar stamens of the water lily.

Common watercolor

Another water lily-like water flower, Vodokras, is a representative of the Vodokras family. For those who live near a body of water, a water-colored, or paddling pool, is truly common, as it occurs very often. The plant blooms very beautifully: three graceful white petals converge to a yellow core.

Flowers are one of nature's most beautiful creations. There is a wide variety of species of these plants and each of them is beautiful in its own way. It is known that more than half of the planet’s surface is covered with water, so it is not surprising that flowers have mastered this element.

Water flowers

Imagine a pond filled with beautiful flowers. This is a magical and mysterious sight. We invite you to see the most beautiful aquatic flowers. Perhaps they will inspire you to create your own pond in the garden and fill it with such enchanting plants.

The flower is native to South America. Widely cultivated and planted in artificial reservoirs. It has a lemon color with a red-brown core and round glossy dark green leaves. Water poppy grows well in shallow, calm ponds and requires plenty of sun. The flower grows 50 cm across the surface of the water and rises to a height of 15 cm. The water poppy produces beautiful lemon-yellow flowers that bloom repeatedly throughout the summer, but only for one day.

This flower grows in wetlands. It is also called duck potato or wapato because it produces tubers that are eaten by Indians. The perennial plant is easy to cultivate, fertilized with manure and requires partial shade. Can grow up to 2 m in length. It has white flowers with yellow stamens. It grows in colonies and blooms from July to September. Ripe tubers can be harvested in early autumn. They can be eaten raw, boiled, fried or stewed. They taste similar to our usual potatoes.

Pontederia cordifolia

A perennial plant that grows in various reservoirs, swamps, on the edges of rivers and lakes. The plant rises 60 cm above the water, has long shiny heart-shaped leaves 25 cm in length. Purple flowers with yellow markings attract bees and butterflies and bloom from June to October.

Water hawthorn

This attractive flower grows in the depths of rivers and lakes. The flower has an interesting shape and has a pleasant vanilla scent. It has the shape of a forked ear. The bracts are pinkish-white and the stamens are black. The leaves are long, narrow and leathery. Hawthorn grows up to 10 cm in height and covers almost 100 cm of the water surface. It blooms 2 times a year: from mid-spring to mid-summer and in winter. To obtain fragrant flowers, the tubers are left in the pool soil over the winter and covered with fallen leaves.

Aquatic plants living in garden ponds are needed not only for decorating the surface of the water and the coastline. Some of them, the leaves of which are on the surface of the reservoir, protect its inhabitants from overheating in extreme heat. Others, being a powerful biofilter, purify water from bacteria and harmful impurities. In addition, aquatic plants also serve as food for the inhabitants of the reservoir.

The area of ​​the water surface occupied by plants should not exceed 20% of the total area of ​​the reservoir. We must also remember that for the successful growth and development of aquatic plants, it is necessary that the surface of the water be illuminated by the sun for 5-6 hours a day.

Aquatic plants are divided into deep-water, floating and shallow-water.

Deep sea plants

The roots of these plants are located in the bottom soil, and the leaves and flowers are located on the surface of the water.

Water lily (Nymphaea) - water lily, nymphea, without which it is simply impossible to imagine any pond.

Water lilies are cold-resistant aquatic plants that successfully winter in open reservoirs of our climate zone. Water lilies bloom from about mid-May until cold weather. But the peak of flowering occurs in mid-summer. One flower lives 4-5 days. Faded flowers should be removed along with part of the stem. It is advisable to remove old yellowed leaves with brown spots.

The diameter, color, doubleness of the flower and variegation of the leaves depend on the variety.

The depth of the reservoir required for normal growth and development also depends on the variety: for dwarf varieties of water lilies, 20-40 cm is enough, for medium ones - 60-80 cm, for giant ones 80-150 cm.

Capsule (Nuphar)- in our reservoirs the yellow egg capsule (Nuphar lutea) is mainly used.

Unpretentious yellow egg pods grow and bloom in ponds even with little light. Egg capsules can easily overwinter at a very shallow depth - only 30-40 cm, so they are indispensable for shallow water bodies. The planting depth of the egg pods is 30-60 cm.

The egg capsules have beautiful bright green leaves, similar to the leaves of water lilies, and bright yellow flowers, slightly raised above the water, with a diameter of 4-6 cm.

Whiteflower shield-leaved(Nymphoides peltata)or nymphaeum, which received this name for its external resemblance to a small water lily, is a rather aggressive plant in a pond. Its growth must be limited, otherwise it will quickly fill the entire space of the reservoir.

The white flower has medium-sized (5-6 cm) round leaves with a slightly wavy edge and bright yellow flowers raised above the water with a diameter of 4-5 cm with a fringed edge.

The planting depth of the white-flowered shield-leaved plant is 40-80 cm.

floating plants

Due to the ability of these plants to effectively purify water, they are called biofilters. Thanks to the various rosettes of leaves, in which daughter rosettes grow along the periphery during the summer, floating plants look very interesting. They do not need to be fixed in the bottom soil, since floating plants receive all their nutrients from water, which is absorbed by the roots located in the thickness of this very water.

Frog watercolor (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae) - a real “janitor” in a reservoir, collecting all aquatic debris on its underwater parts. The growth rate is moderate.

It blooms throughout the summer with medium-sized white trefoils, slightly rising above the water. Small leaves with a diameter of 2.5-3 cm are similar to the leaves of a miniature water lily.

The frog's watercolor overwinters in the form of buds formed at the end of stolons, which in winter descend into deeper layers of water.

It develops equally well in the sun and in the shade. The branch of peripheral rosettes reproduces in early summer.

Pistia stratiotes- this heat-loving plant, called water lettuce, is one of the best natural filters that can remove excess organic matter dissolved in water from water. The dense rosette of pistia is assembled from dense, drooping light green leaves no more than 15 cm high and up to 30 cm wide. Under the base of the rosette there is a long, highly branched root lobe.

Pistia develops well in a warm sunny pond.

Not winter-hardy in open waters. Overwinters in an aquarium with warm water or a container with damp moss at a temperature of +4-5 degrees.

Floating pondweed (Potamogeton natans) - a fast-growing floating plant with brownish-green narrow oval leaves 9-12 cm long and 4-6 cm wide. Some of the leaves and long stems are under water. It grows well in both sunny and slightly shaded ponds. Feels great in shallow water.

Floating pondweed propagates by stem cuttings.

Lesser duckweed (Lemna minor) -O A very small plant floating on the surface of the water, consisting of three rounded leaves. Sooner or later, individual “lawns” of duckweed will appear in the pond, but you should not be upset - duckweed grows strongly only in abandoned reservoirs with a high content of organic matter.

Salvinia natans- relict aquatic fern. Textured oval leaves located on short floating stems are green or bronze-green in color. The small roots of salvinia are located on the underside of the stems. Prefers sunny and warm waters. It reproduces by spores that overwinter at the bottom of the reservoir.

Shallow water plants (coastal plants)

This is the largest group of plants that can grow at different degrees of soil moisture: some grow directly in the shallow water zone at a planting depth of 5-20 cm, others on heavily moist periodically flooded soils, but without immersion in water.

Common calamus (Acorus calamus) - a fast-growing, unpretentious perennial with hard, belt-shaped leaves up to 120 cm high. The photo shows the variety Variegatus, which grows more slowly and has a wide cream stripe.

Calamus perfectly purifies water and is an excellent biofilter. They grow well both in the sun and in significant shade.Planting depth 5-20 cm.

Marsh calla (Calla palustris), marsh calla - an absolutely unpretentious plant with dark green shiny heart-shaped leaves that decorate the pond throughout the summer. In May-June, the calliper appears a fairly large white “veil”, which is mistakenly considered a flower. Small flowers of the marsh whitewing are collected in a short cob. At the end of summer, the calliper bears bright red fruits.

In excessively nutritious swamp water, the whitefly can become an aggressor, so in such cases its growth must be limited, especially in small ponds.

Grows well in both sun and shade. Planting depth 10-15 cm.

THE PLANT IS POISONOUS!

Three-leaf watch (Menyanthes trifoliata)- an unpretentious, spectacular perennial with bright green trifoliate leaves. In May and June, pinkish buds appear at the trifoliate, from which white flowers with ciliated edges of the petals open. The flowers are collected in racemes up to 20 cm long.

Prefers sunny locations, but tolerates some shade. Propagated by dividing rhizomes and seeds.

Planting depth 5-10 cm.

Swamp iris (Iris pseudacorus) - a powerful, rapidly growing perennial up to 120 cm high. Marsh iris has bright green, strap-shaped leaves and yellow flowers that appear en masse in early summer.

It can grow in both sun and shade, but blooms poorly in the shade.

At the moment, many varieties with double flowers and variegated leaves have been developed.

Planting depth 10-20 cm.

Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris)- a very ornamental plant that blooms in early May. Dark green shiny round-heart-shaped leaves with pronounced veining beautifully set off large (4-6 cm) bright yellow flowers with a waxy coating.

Prefers sun or light partial shade. Propagated by dividing the bush at the end of summer or by seeds.

Planting depth 5-10 cm.

Lake reed (Scirpus lacustris)- this plant can be found under the name "kuga". An unpretentious rhizomatous perennial up to 3 m high with narrow dark green leaves, hollow inside. It blooms in the second half of summer with brownish-brown spikelets collected in paniculate inflorescences.

Planting depth 5-20 cm.

Forest reed (Scirpus silvatica)- a plant often found in very humid places in our region. Forest reed has fairly wide, light green, belt-shaped leaves collected in rosettes. It blooms with very attractive loose panicles. A good plant for a small pond.

Planting depth 5-20 cm.

Forget-me-not (Myosotis palustris)- a perennial, fast-growing plant for shallow waters. It blooms in summer with characteristic small blue flowers. Plant height 25-30 cm.

Prefers well-lit places. Propagated by stem cuttings or seeds.

Planting depth 5-10 cm.

Pontederia cordata - A very showy plant with beautifully shaped bright green leaves. It blooms in mid-summer with bluish-purple flowers collected in dense inflorescences.

Prefers places well warmed by the sun. It is not winter-hardy in our climate zone, as it needs a warm winter. It is easier to grow it in a container and store it in a warm room for winter storage.

Propagated by division of rhizomes.

Juncus effusus is a wonderful fast-growing graceful perennial with long needle-shaped leaves and graceful inflorescences. A good choice for shallow water.

It is noteworthy that in winter, the spreading rush is an excellent conductor of air under the ice of a reservoir. Grows well in both sun and partial shade.

Propagates by self-sowing. Planting depth 5-10 cm.

Common arrowhead (Sagittaria sagittifolia)- a very hardy and fast-growing perennial plant. At the beginning of summer it blooms with large lilac-white flowers collected in dense cone-shaped inflorescences. Arrowhead has very decorative fruits - round cones.

Prefers sunny places. It reproduces by buds that form at the ends of stolons, as well as by seeds.

Planting depth is 15-20 cm. When planted deeper, arrowhead may stop blooming, and the leaves may lose their arrow-shaped shape.

Umbrella squirrel (Butomus umbrellatus)- an elegant, unpretentious, rather tall (80-120 cm) perennial with narrow dark green leaves. It blooms in loose, umbrella-shaped inflorescences of pale pink flowers on long, bare stems. Flowering continues almost all summer. Grows well in both sun and shade. Common ponytail (Hippuris vulgaris) or water pine is a perennial unpretentious plant with vertical stems covered with whorls of needle-like leaves. The shoots look like small pine branches.

Prefers well-lit places.

Planting depth 5-10 cm.

It is known that 2/3 of the surface of our planet is occupied by water spaces. It is not surprising that there were many representatives of the plant world that mastered the aquatic environment and possessed unique biological characteristics for this purpose.

Strictly speaking, only a small group of plants that are constantly in the water column are truly aquatic. Some of them are attached to the bottom by roots (hydrophytes), like elodea (Elodea) or urut (Myriophillum). Others, completely devoid of roots, are in a free-floating state (plestophytes) - hornwort (Ceratophyllum), pemphigus (Utricularia).

Deep-sea plants absorb nutrients to a greater extent through the stems than through the roots, so the stems are branched and their surface is greatly increased. This is clearly observed in the examples of hornwort, uruti, and bladderwort.

In some aquatic plants, a clear dimorphism is observed in the structure of the leaves; underwater and floating ones do not resemble each other in any way. This difference is well expressed in floating pondweed (Potamogeton natans) and, especially, cereal pondweed (Potamogeton gramineus)– their underwater leaves are poorly developed. Needing sunlight, like other flora, many aquatic plants place their main photosynthetic apparatus - leaves - in a floating state on the surface of the water. At the same time, they take root at the bottom and carry the leaves to the surface of the water on long stems, like a water lily (Nimphea) or egg capsule (Nuphar), or they float along with the roots without even touching the ground, such as the frog's watercolor (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae) or marsh turkish (Butomus umbellatus).

The floating leaves of deep-sea plants have one characteristic feature - the stomata on them are located not on the lower, but on the upper side of the leaf - where they come into contact with air and not with water (water lily, water lily, marsh flower, brazenia). The leaves themselves are thick, leathery, covered with a waxy layer to protect them from excess moisture.

The water lily, or nymphea, is rightfully considered the most luxurious and exquisite plant for a pond. In addition to several natural species, there is a wide variety of varieties that decorate the water surface with their blooms for two months. The most winter-hardy of them come from the quadrangular water lily, found in our nature all the way to the Arctic Circle, and overwinter under thick ice. Heat-loving varieties obtained with the participation of tropical water lilies, often larger and more interesting in the color of flowers and foliage, require a frost-free room for wintering.

Many aquatic plants used to decorate garden ponds are representatives of the Russian flora - marsh flower, bladderwort, pondweed, bagel, salvinia, telores, turcha, wolfia, duckweed - they are well adapted to our harsh climatic conditions.

The organs of aquatic plants located in an airless environment experience a constant deficiency of oxygen and carbon dioxide necessary for life. In this regard, most of them have loose ventilation tissue (aerenchyma), which compensates for the lack of air exchange. It is present in the thickened petioles of water lilies (Nymphea), and Eichornia (Eichornia) and chilima (Trapa) also acts as a float and promotes their mobility. For the same reason, the stems of many aquatic plants are hollow.

All aquatic plants used today to decorate garden ponds came to us from nature, where they mastered completely different ecological niches - from small puddles and small streams to huge lakes and rivers. Understanding the ecological differences between wet habitats provides keys to successfully growing plants - from planting site selection and soil conditions to management principles.

Artificially created garden ponds, as a rule, have a controlled inflow and outflow of water. In nature, standing and flowing reservoirs create different conditions for plants. Plants with long stems are not found in large lakes due to the great depth, but grow in small ponds, regardless of depth.

Large leaves are found on plants that live in stagnant or slow-flowing waters, for example, yellow egg capsule (Nuphar lutea), knotweed amphibian (Polygonum amphibium). In flowing bodies of water (rivers, streams, springs), plants must withstand mechanical loads created by the flow, so they usually have medium-sized foliage. Some plants that prefer cold spring water do not take root well in heated garden ponds. And underwater plants of streams and springs, where water near the surface has constant contact with air, do not tolerate the oxygen-poor water of stagnant bodies of water.

The most reliable assortment of aquatic plants for temperate climates is the local natural flora. Among them is the quadrangular water lily (Nymphaea tetragona), bogweed (Nymphoides peltata), amphibious knotweed (Polygonum amphibium), float bagel (Trapa natans), telores aloeides (Stratiotes aloides), salvinia floating (Salvinia natans). They alone may be enough to decorate a pond.

However, more heat-loving plants can also diversify the flora of a garden pond. When acquiring non-winter-hardy species, you need to think about wintering them. Heat-loving hybrid water lilies are placed in a cool basement, covered with sphagnum moss.

Plants such as salvinia aurica can overwinter in an aquarium. (Salvinia auriculata), azolla carolina (Azolla caroliniana), pistia lamina (Pistia stratiotes), Eichornia pachypodina (Eichhornia crassipes).

It is worth mentioning separately about mini-reservoirs arranged in containers. It is in them that some exotic plants living in aquariums are most often used.

For all those who cannot afford the luxury of having a garden pond, even a miniature pond with 3-5 species of plants will bring a lot of joy and become an interesting garden object.

Photo: Maxim Minin, Rita Brilliantova

Among the marine species - sea ruffe - scorpionfish, etc. By the way, coral fish, colored to match the bright coral reefs surrounding them, also mimic these “hard” thickets.

Another important point is that aquatic plants are a source of food for many fish. Of course, we must make allowances for our climate, since in winter the amount of vegetation in many reservoirs is sharply reduced and fish must switch to other types of food. Such fish are called facultative phytophages (golden crucian carp, bream, roach, etc.). For them, vegetation is not the main component of the diet, but a tasty and healthy addition to animal organisms.

Even using this nutritional criterion alone, you can create a certain picture of underwater inhabitants. For example, if you find fouling of filamentous algae on coastal stones, then you can count on encountering podust, temple or roach. When you find planktonic algae in large quantities, then look for silver carp, the same roach and other cyprinids (this is a freshwater species) and the Pacific sardine (a marine species).

In some regions, well-developed higher aquatic vegetation makes it possible to locate grass carp and rudd. And some fish are very fond of the so-called plant detritus (bottom plant accumulations) - these are young lampreys, podusts, khramuli, marinkas, osmans, etc. By the way, it is very interesting that among marine fish there are much fewer phytophages than among freshwater ones, although in the sea in Highly nutritious and tasty algae grow in large quantities, which are often included in artificial feed for breeding fish of many species.

Of course, every medal has a flip side. Sometimes higher and lower aquatic plants cause significant harm to water bodies and fish. First of all, this is the bloom of water. Sometimes reservoirs are overgrown with elodea, reeds, hogweed, lake reeds, cattails, pondweed, and horsetail. These plants simply physically displace fish from reservoirs and disrupt the hydrochemical regime. Recently, they began to fight this phenomenon, like weeds on land plantations, using mechanical and chemical extermination of weeds. Treatment of reservoirs is often carried out with the help of aviation.

In winter, fish in the middle zone have a very tense situation with oxygen, and not only because of the low temperature. Starting from mid-December, some of the aquatic plants of our reservoirs (pondweed, egg capsules, elodea, water lilies, etc.) are already dying off, sinking to the bottom in huge quantities and, in the process of rotting, absorbing so much oxygen that there is little left for the fauna (fish and invertebrate animals).

Anglers should pay attention to how the aquatic plant relates to the substrate. The overwhelming majority of representatives of higher aquatic vegetation take root in the ground. These are pondweed, arrowhead, cattail, bramble, reed, horsetail, urut and others. But in reservoirs there are also free-floating ones (on the surface, sometimes in the water column), as well as plants with floating leaves (pistia, fontinalis moss, water kras, marsh flower, water buttercup, aloe vera, duckweed mono- and trilobed, egg capsule, water lily, nut water and others).

For many aquatic plants, their entire life cycle takes place in the water column. Representatives of this group occupy relatively deep places in the coastal zone, going down to the border where a sufficient amount of sunlight necessary for plant nutrition still reaches. Of the representatives of this group in our waters, water mosses, hornwort, haru, and nitella can most often be found.

The next group is plants that mainly live under water, but produce flowers in the air. These are bladderwrack, urut, pondweed, elodea, and buttercup.

The third group is plants that raise their leaves to the surface of the water (water lily, buckwheat, duckweed).

And finally, the fourth group is plants that expose more or less of their green stems and leaves above the surface of the water. This group includes horsetails, cattails, reeds, reeds, etc.

Coastal thickets of aquatic (and semi-aquatic) vegetation surround a wide continuous strip of the shores of lakes, ponds and rivers. Only very open banks on the leeward side of rivers and lakes are devoid of large aquatic plants. As a rule, different types of plants (submerged in water, or with floating leaves and stems, or rising above the water) are arranged in separate stripes, grouped mainly depending on depth and the presence of current.

Near the very shore there are thickets of water iris, broad-leaved cattail, parasol, burrow, string, marsh whitewing, reeds, reeds, horsetails, etc., forming a thick bristle of narrow, closely standing tall stems and linear leaves above the water surface. It is inconvenient for large and active fish to be among such “hard” vegetation, since, firstly, it is difficult to turn around, and secondly, the fish are often injured by the sharp edges of sedges, pondweeds, etc.

In addition to “hard” aquatic plants, in reservoirs there are also thickets of “soft” aquatic plants: pierced-leaved pondweed, comb-leaved pondweed, floating pondweed, curly-leaved pondweed, Canadian elodea, whorled uruti, and dark green hornwort. Such “soft” thickets are also fraught with danger for fish: juveniles and adults sometimes become entangled in the tangle of leaves and stems. But near such “soft” thickets you can always find a huge number of juvenile fish, which, in turn, can feed on larger individuals. So if an angler notices branched bushes of such plants under water, he can safely expect fish in this place. If we move further, to the central part of the reservoir, we will see that “hard” vertical plants give way to a whole series of plants that do not rise above the water level, with the exception of the flowering period. Their leaves either spread out over the water (water lily, arrowhead, etc.), or rise almost to the surface and are clearly visible through a thin layer of water (elodea, myriophyllum, water mosses, etc.).

Next come those plants that huddle close to the bottom and are difficult to detect even when leaning over the water. Often, however, thickets of different types overlap one another, mixed plant communities arise, and in connection with this, mixed biocenoses. In such places, a more diverse species composition of fish is observed. The species composition of aquatic plant thickets can change significantly over time. This is due to the fact that plants deplete the soil, sucking out the salts they need from it, or release harmful substances into the soil (bottom of the reservoir), thereby stopping their further development and dying. In addition, changing weather and climatic conditions, anthropogenic impact on water bodies, etc., significantly affect the species composition of plants.

The fish of our reservoirs have a positive attitude towards most aquatic plants: sedge, water lily, reeds, duckweed, etc. After all, plants provide oxygen, food, shelter, and a substrate for eggs. Occurring facts of inadequate attitude of fish to seemingly beloved plants can be explained by various reasons. Aquatic plants are very sensitive to environmental pollution, and poisoning of a reservoir, and therefore of aquatic vegetation, which is invisible to humans, can easily be felt by fish.

Tench and carp are very sensitive to the secretions of aquatic plants, so you are unlikely to find these fish in thickets of arrowhead, hornwort or elodea. On the contrary, other carp fish and pike really love the smell of arrowhead flowers. Arrowhead flowers have three white rounded petals, and their pedicels contain a whitish milky juice, which attracts fish. After flowering, arrowhead shoots appear under water, nodules rich in starch and protein, which carp fish eat with pleasure. By the way, arrowhead tubers contain 25% more starch than potato tubers!

	Near the shore, along the edge of aquatic vegetation, many small fish like to walk in schools, which in turn are of interest to larger predators (for example, pike). In heavily overgrown reservoirs, fish are often found at the border of open water and thickets, and if aquatic plants are found only in small islands, then look for fish near them. These are general rules, to which, of course, there are exceptions. Let's start with a well-known aquatic plant - reed. This is a truly scary plant for fish, but only in windy weather. When there is wind, reeds, the stems of which are very stiff and resemble large straw, produce strong crackling, rustling and rustling noises that scare away fish. So there is almost no chance of finding fish in a pond among the reeds in windy weather. Exceptions are fish with weak hearing - for example, catfish, which in any weather, in any wind, can sit in the dense thickets of this plant. In our reservoirs, reeds are found almost everywhere in places with a depth of up to 1.5 m.
	An interesting fact is that the author of the song “The reeds rustled, the trees bent...” was absolutely botanically illiterate and confused reeds with reeds! It was the reeds that made noise, scaring the fish and the “beloved couple,” while the reeds made almost no noise in the wind. Reed is a good water filter; the spongy structure of its stems facilitates the delivery of oxygen to the root areas, at the same time enriching the bottom soil, which has a beneficial effect on the growth of other plants and the well-being of bottom-dwelling fish species. For this reason, reeds are popular in artificial ponds where fish and aquatic plants are grown together. For the same reason, reed beds are often chosen by pike and other fish to lay eggs. In calm weather, among the reed thickets you can find roach, carp, rudd, crucian carp, ide, perch, carp, tench and bream. These fish easily reveal their presence among the stems when they make their way through them. Small and medium-sized perches love sparsely growing reeds; their slowly swimming schools move back and forth along the edge of coastal reed thickets. Large perch are more likely to be found at the ends of capes of thick reeds (or reeds) protruding into the reservoir, especially if there is sufficient depth at the edge of the vegetation.
	Unlike “loud” reeds, fish of many species prefer to live in reed thickets. Dense reed thickets provide excellent shelter for prey fish and hunter fish. There are many different invertebrates here that feed on carp, carp, crucian carp, bream, juvenile pike, perch and pike perch, as well as silver bream, ruffe, ide, dace and roach. Externally, the reed is easily recognizable - a long, smooth, dark green stem rises above the surface of the water, on which there are no leaves at all. The stalk of the reed is thinner at the top than at the bottom, and the length of the “reed” can exceed 5 m! Botanists classify reeds as members of the sedge family, although they are not similar in appearance. Having broken the stem of the reed, we will see a porous mass (resembling yellowish foam), penetrated by a network of air channels that release a lot of oxygen into the water, thereby attracting fish and aquatic invertebrates. Usually reeds form dense thickets near the shore. Carp and carp love the juice of freshly cut reeds; By carefully placing several reed stems into the water, you can attract these fish to the chosen place. You can detect fish in the reeds by the reeds that tremble from time to time or the characteristic splashes of fish. It is also useful to observe the behavior of birds. There is a saying: waders go to the reeds, bream go to the bottom.
	Fishermen often confuse cattail or chakan with reed. This is a completely different plant; cattail has a rigid stem on which wide and long leaves are located. This beauty is completed by a dark brown velvety cob with ripened seeds. Dried cattail stalks with a cob are often placed in vases at home and later remembered about the catch. Cattail grows in places with a depth of up to 1.0-1.5 m. Most often it is found in small swampy reservoirs. Young tender tops of cattail leaves are eaten by crucian carp, tench, carp and roach. The leaves of a mature plant become coarser; only grass carp feed on them. But pike loves to use cattail as a substrate for laying eggs, which can be found among both young and old cattail.
	Almost all of our fish avoid the thickets of Canadian Elodea, or, as it is also called, “water plague”. Elodea acquired this name because of its ability to completely fill a reservoir, displacing and surviving all living things. Only grass carp willingly eats Elodea leaves, and sometimes you can still see pike before spawning.
	Aquatic horsetails are plants that form many shoots and tend to grow. Among them, botanists identify several dozen species, but usually we come across swamp, silty or riverine ones. Externally, horsetail is a very characteristic plant: it has a cylindrical, rather thin, segmented stem, each segment of which is separated from the neighboring one by a ring of small serrated leaves. Horsetails, like reeds, have hollow stems that accumulate oxygen and enrich the water with it. This is especially true for fish in winter, in January - February. But be careful! Usually the ice over the area of ​​the reservoir where horsetails grow in winter is thin, and the fisherman runs the risk of swimming in such water.
	Another aquatic plant produces large amounts of oxygen. These are various pondweeds that grow at depths of 2 to 4 m. They do not tolerate leaves on the surface of the water; an attentive fisherman can see poorly visible flowers, similar to small fir cones. All pondweeds are perennial plants. They survive winter well in our reservoirs, helping fish survive oxygen starvation. Some pondweeds develop a long rhizome in the ground in winter, which produces new shoots in the spring. Dead shoots of pondweeds participate in the formation of bottom silt. Pondweed feeds on aquatic mollusks, insects and some species of fish. Many fish use these plants as a substrate for spawning. One of the most common pondweeds, comb pondweed, differs in appearance from the rest: its stems are branched, and its leaves are thin and narrow. This pondweed is found in shallow waters, its flexible stems twisting and swaying. Its thickets are often inhabited by schools of fry, which attract hungry adult fish. The next common species is pierced-leaved pondweed. It is most common in our reservoirs, has long branched stems and rounded leaves, as if strung on a stem (hence the name). By the way, it is this pondweed that owners of water motor vehicles dislike so much - the plants are easily screwed onto the screws of boat motors and wound around the oars. The tops of young leaves of pondweeds of almost all types are a favorite food for carp, roach, bream, ide, bleak, and carp. In addition to herbivorous fish, many animal-eating fish graze around the pondweeds, since the thickets are home to various invertebrates, insect larvae, mollusks and other aquatic organisms, which are attracted here by the high oxygen content.
	Another plant popular with our fish is urut. Hydrobotanists distinguish five of its species, among them the most common in our reservoirs are the spicate urut and the whorled urut. Urut spica grows at depths from 0.3 to 2 m, and whorled urut grows at depths of 3-4 m. Thickets of uruti usually grow on silty soils and love water rich in calcium. When the calcium content in the water is high, the leaves of uruti become covered with a lime crust. Uru spica is very sensitive to water temperature and less sensitive to light. Underwater meadows of uruti play a very important role in the life of the reservoir. In its thickets there are large accumulations of small invertebrate animals, which are food for many inhabitants of the reservoir. Schools of perch and tench love to pluck the leaves of the plant for invertebrates, and the urut itself is an excellent addition to the diet for bream, large roach, ide and other fish. In addition, urut serves as a substrate for fish eggs and a refuge for the entire animal population of the reservoir, especially for fry. In many reservoirs, pike use uruti thickets for ambush.
Water Lily (Water Lily)
	The water lily is a floating plant, which is often called the “water queen” because it is one of the most beautiful and largest flowers in our region. These plants belong to the genus of water lilies, or nymphs, which has about 40 species of plants. Sometimes it is called a water lily. Water lilies are unusual plants in many respects. They live in both very warm and completely frozen bodies of water and are distributed almost everywhere: from the forest-tundra to the southern tip of the American continent. These amphibious plants are able to live (grow leaves, bloom and bear fruit) both in water and on land (if the water level in the reservoir has dropped significantly). Fish highly value both the aromatic qualities of the water lily (many fish are attracted by the smell of its flowers) and the edible ones. By the way, water lily seeds are distributed over long distances by fish and birds. The water lily grows at depths of 2.5-3 m, but now this wonderful plant can be found less and less often in our reservoirs, and it is listed in the Red Book. Water lily thickets in closed reservoirs like to be visited by carp, carp, crucian carp, roach, bream, tench, perch (small), in rivers - rudd, bleak, ide, pike, roach. The carp diet includes only the youngest tender leaves, as well as water lily rhizomes, which contain a lot of starch, sugar and vegetable protein. Often thickets of water lilies are scattered in spots along the shoreline behind the belt of angustifolia cattail and lake reed. An interesting fact is that water lilies float to the surface of the water at exactly six o’clock in the morning, open their inflorescences, and close at exactly six in the evening and go under the water again. But this only applies to ideal weather, and as soon as bad weather approaches, the water lily flowers, regardless of the time, go under water, or on such days they do not appear at all. For anglers, the absence of water lily flowers on the surface is a clearly visible sign of a change in weather.
	Many people confuse the white water lily and the yellow water lily. The yellow capsule grows at depths of 2.5-3 m and is a characteristic plant of floodplain reservoirs. Carp, roach, crucian carp, carp, bream, pike perch, ruffe, tench, bleak, ide, white bream, small perch, pike, roach, grass carp and even eel (artificially released, on Lake Seliger he chose its thickets) like to visit the thickets of egg capsules. . The diet of many cyprinids includes only the most tender young leaves (like the water lily). Old leaves become hard, rough and unsuitable for fish food, but tiny snails and small leeches love to settle on their undersides and are excellent food. Plants can not only injure fish with their sharp edges, but also cause harm to fish at night or in winter (with short daylight hours) because in the dark they absorb oxygen and release carbon dioxide, which is harmful to fish. Plants are characterized by a process of photosynthesis consisting of two phases. During the day (in the light), plants actively absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen in incomparably greater quantities than they consume during respiration, that is, they enrich the water with it. In the dark, the absorption of carbon dioxide by plants stops, and they only consume oxygen, which becomes less and less in the water. With the rapid growth of aquatic vegetation and high water temperatures in small lakes, fish may die at night, but even if this does not occur, the fish’s food search activity decreases sharply. With the onset of the light phase, aquatic plants energetically absorb carbon dioxide and process it into green mass. Intense release of oxygen begins, and the feeding activity of the fish is restored. By noon, the process of photosynthesis slows down, there is less oxygen in the water, and the fish are less active. For this reason, the feeding activity of fish in the daytime is reduced compared to the dawn: the fish are already full. In addition, in winter, at any time of the day, dead plants rot under the ice, absorbing oxygen, especially in stagnant bodies of water. It is in these places that mass fish deaths occur.
Duckweed needs no special introduction. Anyone who has been near lakes, ponds or old ditches with water in the summer has seen this plant covering the surface of the water with a dense emerald carpet. Several species of duckweed, members of the duckweed family, are widespread throughout the globe, including in Russia. These are small plants floating on the surface or in the water column, consisting of leaves - leaf-shaped stems, fastened in several pieces to each other, from which a single short thread-like root extends. At the base of the leaf there is a side pocket in which a tiny inflorescence can develop, consisting of two staminate and one pistillate flowers. Duckweeds rarely bloom in natural reservoirs. Flowers have a simple structure: staminate flowers consist of only one stamen, and pistillate flowers have one pistil; There are no petals or sepals in such flowers. During the warm period, the plant reproduces vegetatively, with the help of young leaves that separate from the mother plant. Duckweed overwinters in the form of buds that sink to the bottom along with the dead plant. Two types of duckweed are commonly found: Lesser duckweed (L. minor) - see picture on the left and Trilobed duckweed (L. trisulca) - see picture on the right. Lesser duckweed inhabits many bodies of water and reproduces extremely quickly. The most common pond plant with flat elliptical leaves 3-4.5 mm long, floating on the surface of the water. Duckweed trilobed grows relatively weakly, lives in the water column and rises to the surface during flowering. It is distinguished by green translucent spoon-shaped leaves 5-10 mm long. The leaves are connected to each other for a long time, forming balls that float in the water column and float to the surface during flowering. Duckweed is highly branched and forms a blanket of small bright green leaves with one root below on the surface of the water. Flowers very rarely appear in May-June. Multi-root duckweed, or common poly-root duckweed - Lemna роlуrhyza = Spirodela роlуrhyza Poly-root duckweed is not found very often in the same reservoirs where two types of duckweed grow abundantly. A bunch of reddish or white roots extends from the underside of each stem, which has a rounded-ovoid shape. It rarely blooms in May-June. The polyroot has a dark green upper side of the leaf blade, with clearly visible arched veins, and the underside, immersed in water, is violet-purple. The plate is up to 6 mm in diameter. All these types of duckweeds are cold-resistant and light-loving. They live in bodies of water with standing or slowly flowing water. When caring for a reservoir, you have to constantly catch part of the population or, by purifying the water, create conditions that are not conducive to rapid growth. Reproduction is mainly vegetative and very fast. Each stem, similar to a small leaf, quickly buds off new and new parts of the stems, which, while still connected to the main stems, give rise to new young plants. Species with individuals floating on the surface of the water can completely “swallow” a small body of water in a short period of time. Humpbacked and multi-rooted duckweeds are particularly aggressive. These plants are rarely brought into a body of water intentionally. More often they get there with the help of birds, frogs, newts and when transplanting other plants. It is difficult to completely get rid of duckweed, but its numbers can be limited by driving the plants to one place with a net or a stream of water from a garden hose, and then catching them with the same net. The extracted mass can be used to make compost and as bird feed. These plants clean water bodies of carbon dioxide and supply oxygen, serve as food for fish and protection from sunlight. But despite this, you should never deliberately introduce duckweed into a pond, since once it appears in your pond, it will be almost impossible to eradicate it. Also be careful when bringing other plants into the pond - make sure that there is no duckweed on the plant itself or in the water.

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