Arrow leaf pondweed - Monochoria hastata

Common Name :	Arrow Leaf Pondweed.
Binomial Name :	Monochoria hastata
Family :	Pontederiaceae
Bangla Name :	Boronokha.
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

This is an aquatic plant from the same genre of water hyacinth. Common name of the plant is Arrow Leaf Pondweed. Binomial name is Monochoria hastata. It belongs to the plant family Pontederiaceae. This water weed is widely seen at the Indian subcontinent (Native to tropical Asia and Northern Australia). This is an invasive weed and hard to eradicate.

People often use to confuse this flower with water hyacinth as it grows in water and also as the color of the flower is blue. This plant is easily identified by its leafs. Heart shaped leafs are slight larger and having pointed at one side. For this criterion it is named as Arrow Leafed Pondweed.

Arrow leaf pondweed (Monochoria hastata) grows at the watery lands, swamp area, beside ponds, etc. Color of the flower is from light blue to blue, and sometimes violet. Flowers are basically a cluster of six petals small flowers. Each flower from the cluster is having an erect stigma surrounded by 4/5 stamens having yellow filaments.

Though this plant is considered as a weed, but still it has several uses in our life. We use the leaf of this plant to fodder our domestic animals. The root of the plant has a great use to ease the ache of tooth.

Photos of Arrow leaf pondweed (Monochoria hastata) were taken from Dhaka of Bangladesh. It was during the month of June 2015. In Bangladesh this plant is known as Boro nokha or Boronokha (বড়নখা).


This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog https://icflora.blogspot.com/