Pickerelweed
Other Common Names: flowered pickerelweed
(Pontederia cordata)
Native
Pickerelweed has elongated heart shaped leaves with violet blue flowers.
Management Options
Click here for more information on how to control pickerelweed.
Description
Thick, creeping rhizomes are rooted in mud with stems up to three feet tall. Bright green leaves are straight, triangular, and can be egg shaped to sword shaped. Pickerelweed leaves are twice as long as they are wide. At the base they are heart shaped or cut off and up to three-fourths of an inch wide. Straight flower spikes grow up to six inches long with violet blue or white flowers that have a short life cycle. The flowers of pickerelweed are funnel shaped and have two lips. Fruits are thin and bladder like with one seed.
Ducks eat pickerelweed seeds, and muskrats and nutria eat the rhizomes and base.
Location
Pickerelweed can be found across the eastern half of the United States.
Propagation
rhizomes, seeds
Management Options
Click here for more information on how to control pickerelweed.