Pistia stratiotesL.

Water Lettuce

WFO wfo-0000273956 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Pistia stratiotes, photographed by Fernando Sessegolo
fig. a Fernando Sessegolo, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-02 / obs. 204358608
Pistia stratiotes, photographed by Daniel Dias
fig. b Daniel Dias, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 201721791
Pistia stratiotes, photographed by ritirene
fig. c ritirene, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201415173
Pistia stratiotes, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. d Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199836652
Pistia stratiotes, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. e Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195045232
Pistia stratiotes, photographed by Josiah Londerée
fig. f Josiah Londerée, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197945888
Pistia stratiotes, photographed by danielrmacias
fig. g danielrmacias, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197570732
Pistia stratiotes, photographed by Claire Herzog
fig. h Claire Herzog, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193893710

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 88 observations

Peak flowering in Dec, from 88 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 30 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Apiospermum obcordatum (Schleid.) Klotzsch
  • Limnonesis commutata (Schleid.) Klotzsch
  • Limnonesis friedrichsthaliana Klotzsch
  • Pistia aegyptiaca Schleid.
  • Pistia aethiopica Fenzl ex Klotzsch
  • Pistia africana C.Presl
  • Pistia amazonica C.Presl
  • Pistia brasiliensis Klotzsch
  • Pistia commutata Schleid.
  • Pistia crispata Blume
  • Pistia cumingii Klotzsch
  • Pistia gardneri Klotzsch
  • Pistia horkeliana Miq.
  • Pistia leprieurii Blume
  • Pistia linguiformis Blume
  • Pistia minor Blume
  • Pistia natalensis Klotzsch
  • Pistia obcordata Schleid.
  • Pistia occidentalis Blume
  • Pistia schleideniana Klotzsch
  • Pistia spathulata Michx.
  • Pistia stratiotes var. cuneata Engl.
  • Pistia stratiotes var. linguiformis Engl.
  • Pistia stratiotes var. obcordata (Schleid.) Engl.

and 6 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.