Eichhornia crassipes

Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms, Monogr. Phan. [A.DC. & C.DC.] 4: 527 (1883).

Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms; Family: Pontederiaceae

Vietnamese name: Lục bình, Lộc bình, bèo Nhật Bản

Chinese name: 凤眼蓝 feng yan lan

Common names: Water hyacinth, common water hyacinth, "million dollar weed" [English]; camalote, flor de bora, jacinto de agua común [Spanish]; aguapé, jacinto-de-água, aguapé de flor roxa, jacinto-aquático, orquídea d'agua, rainha dos lagos [Portuguese]; mururê [Portuguese/Brazil]; jacinthe d'eau, camalote [French]; waterhyacint [Dutch]; Dickstielige Wasserhyazinthe [German]; eceng gondok, enceng gondok [Indonesian]; giacinto d'acqua [Italian]; lục bình, bèo lục lình, bèo tây, bèo nhật bản, phù bình [Vietnamese]; 凤眼蓝 [Chinese]; जल कुंभी [Hindi]; ホテイアオイ [Japanese]; 부레옥잠 [Korean]; കുളവാഴ [Malayalam]; سنبل آبی [Persian]; водяно́й гиаци́нт [Russian]; ผักตบชวา [Thai]

Latin Name: Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms

Synonym Name: Eichhornia cordifolia Gand.; Eichhornia crassicaulis Schltdl.   

Eichhornia crassicaulis Schltr.; Eichhornia speciosa Kunth; Heteranthera formosa Miq.; Piaropus crassipes (Mart.) Raf.; Piaropus mesomelas Raf.; Pontederia crassicaulis Schltdl.; Pontederia crassicaulis Schltr.; Pontederia crassipes Mart. 

Pontederia crassipes Roem. & Schult.; Pontederia elongata Balf.

Family: Pontederiaceae

Description: Herbs floating, 0.3-2 m. Roots many, long, fibrous. Stems very short; stolons greenish or purplish, long, apically producing new plants. Leaves radical, rosulate; petiole yellowish green to greenish, 10-40 cm, spongy, usually very much swollen at or below middle; leaf blade orbicular, broadly ovate, or rhomboidal, 4.5-14.5 × 5-14 cm, leathery, glabrous, densely veined, base shallowly cordate, rounded, or broadly cuneate. Inflorescences bracteate, spirally 7-15-flowered; peduncle 35-45 cm. Perianth 6-parted, segments purplish blue, petaloid, ovate to elliptic, upper one larger with yellow blotch at center adaxially, others subequal but lower one narrower. Stamens 6, 3 long and 3 short; filaments curved, glandular hairy. Pistil heterostylic; stigma glandular hairy. Capsule ovoid. Flowring. July-October, fruit. August-November.

Distribution: Water hyacinth originated from Amazonia and spread naturally throughout South America. It was introduced as an ornamental species into the USA, South East Asia and South Africa in the late 19th century and is now naturalized in most tropical and subtropical areas. It can be found between 38°N and 38°S and is referred to as a noxious weed in more than 50 countries on five continents 
Ecological: Naturalized, growing gregariously in pools, ditches, and rice fields; 200--500 m.

Chemistry:

- Fresh plant yielded alkaloids, flavonoids, phenols, sterols, terpenoids, anthroquinones, and protein.

- Chloroform extract yielded anthocyanins, phenolics, proteins and carbohydrates; an ethanol extract yielded metabolites such as flavonoids, anthroquinones, phenolics and carbohydrates.

- Fractionated extracts yielded the presence of phenols, protein, alkaloids, amino acids, carbohydrate, flavonoids, glycosides, tannins, and terpenoids. (see study below)

- Nutritive analysis of samples from different places showed no significant variation. Study (g/100 g DM) yielded dry matter (8.7-9.8), crude protein (10.1-11.2), crude fiber (26.1-27.4), ash (12.3-12.4), and metabolizable energy (1999.7-2054.1 Kcal/kg).

- Study of various extracts of fresh shoots and rhizomes by thin layer chromatography using different solvent systems yielded 11 amino acids, seven essential AA and four non-essential AA, viz., serine, valine, leucine, methionine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, lysine, tyrosine, tryptophan, histidine, and isoleucine, respectively.

- Waterhyacinth possesses nutritional important compounds viz., phenolics, flavonoids, glutathione and many other metabolites. Phytochemical screening yielded alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, terpenoids, anthraquinones, phenols, quinones, glycosides, reducing sugar, and steroids, with absence of saponins, sterols, carbohydrates, and proteins.

Pharmacology:

- Acute Toxicity Study

-  Anti-Inflammatory

- Phytochemicals / Antimicrobial

-  Antifungal and Anti-Algal

-  Antibacterial and Antifungal

-  Antitumor on In-Vivo Induced-Melanoma

-  Antioxidant

-  Hepatoprotective / CCl₄ Hepatotoxicity

- Anticancer / Human Cervical Cancer Cell Line

- Antimicrobial Against Plant Pathogens

Cultivation Details

Water hyacinth can succeed in a variety of climates from the subtropical to the tropical zones. It grows best in areas where annual daytime temperatures are within the range 20 - 35°c, but can tolerate 10 - 40°c. It can be killed by temperatures of 1°c or lower. Plants cannot tolerate water temperatures in excess of 34°c. It prefers a mean annual rainfall in the range 1,000 - 3,000mm, but tolerates 600 - 4,000mm.

Prefers growing in a sunny but cool pool. Prefers a pH in the range 6.7 - 7.3, tolerating 5 - 8.

This is an extremely fast growing plant. Under favourable conditions it can double the area it is covering every 6 - 15 days. It has escaped from cultivation and become a very invasive weed of water courses in the tropics, causing great environmental problems in many areas where it has become naturalized. Great care should be taken if introducing it to new ponds, but it is easy to control when grown in confined areas. It is extremely important, when removing any plant material from the pond, that it is not released into any other water course. Subsistence farmers in Bangladesh face disaster when rafts of water hyacinth weighing up to 300 tonnes per hectare float over their rice paddies. As the floods recede, the weeds remain on the germinating rice, thus killing it. Engineers have estimated that the Panama Canal would be impassable within three years without continuous aquatic weed control measures. Azotobacter chroococcum, a Nitrogen-fixing bacteria, may be concentrated around the bases of the petioles but doesn't fix nitrogen unless the plant is suffering extreme nitrogen-deficiency.

Edible Uses:

Young leaves and petioles - cooked. Virtually tasteless. Said to be used as a carotene-rich table vegetable in Formosa. Javanese sometimes cook and eat the green parts and inflorescence.

Medicinal: The leaf petioles are eaten as a treatment for diarrhoea. An infusion of the inflated petioles is used in a bath to treat fevers.

Reference:

- theplantlist.org

- efloras.org

- ipni.org

- tropical.theferns.info

- Preliminary studies on phytochemicals and antimicrobial activity of solvent extracts of Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.)Solms / Thamaraiselvi, P. Lalitha and P. Jayanthi / Asian Journal of Plant Science and Research, 2012, 2 (2):115-122

- Antimicrobial activity of solvent extracts of Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms / P. Jayanthi and P. Lalitha / Der Pharma Chemica, 2013, 5(3):135-140

- Phytochemical Analysis, Antifungal, Antimicrobial Activities and Application of Eichhornia crassipes Against Some Plant Pathogens / M.W. HAGGAG / S.M. ABOU EL ELLA /  H.F. ABOUZIENA / Planta daninha vol.35  Viçosa  2017

- Nutritive value of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) / Md. Emran HOSSAIN, Hillol SIKDER, Md. Hossain KABIR and Sabuj Manohar SARMA / Online Journal of Animal and Feed Research, 5(2); pp 40-44

- Nutritive value of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) / Md. Emran HOSSAIN, Hillol SIKDER, Md. Hossain KABIR and Sabuj Manohar SARMA / Online Journal of Animal and Feed Research, 5(2); pp 40-44

- Pharmaceutical potential of aquatic plant Pistia stratiotes (L.) and Eichhornia crassipes / Tyagi Tulika, Agrawal Mala / Journal of Plant Sciences, 2015; 3(1-1): pp 10-18 .