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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-283
Water Spinach
Ipomoea aquatica
Water spinach is a fast-growing aquatic vine grown across Southeast Asia as both a leaf vegetable and one of the best livestock fodders available - rich in protein, palatable to rabbits, pigs and cattle, and harvestable year-round in frost-free conditions. Its stems root at every node and can advance several inches a day, so an unconfined planting colonizes an entire body of water in a single season. It is a federally listed noxious weed in the United States, and Texas separately lists it as a prohibited exotic species requiring a permit to possess, propagate or transport, with real per-plant penalties for anyone caught without one. Grown in polluted water it also pulls heavy metals out of the water column - useful for filtration, but it makes anything harvested from that water unsafe to eat.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 2–11
- Soil
- Loam
- Moisture
- Moderate · Wet
Vertical layer
Aquatic- Soil pH
- 5.5–7
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 6–12 in
- Mature spread
- 10–70 ft
- Plant spacing
- 8–12 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Root
Keep exploring
Similar plants
Discover more plants with shared forest layers or growing conditions.
American Lotus
Nelumbo lutea
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Blue Flag Iris
Iris versicolor
Blue Flag Iris is a rhizomatous perennial of marshes, pond margins and wet meadows, grown for its blue to violet flowers from May into August…
Aquatic · USDA 3–9
Bulrush
Schoenoplectus acutus
Bulrush is a tall wetland sedge that forms dense rhizome colonies along pond margins, lake edges and slow streams, growing several feet tall…
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Cattail
Typha latifolia
Cattail is a tall wetland perennial that colonizes the shallow margins of ponds, ditches and marshes, forming dense stands of sword-like…
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Lotus
Nelumbo nucifera
Sacred lotus grows from a rhizome buried in pond mud, sending up round leaves well above the waterline and flowers that open for only a few…
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Mosquito Fern
Azolla filiculoides
Water Fern is a tiny free-floating fern that carries its own built-in nitrogen fixer, a cyanobacterium living in a pocket inside every leaf,…
Aquatic · USDA 7–10
The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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