Plant Family: Water-Hyacinth Family, Pontedariaceae
Pickerel-weed (Pontederia cordata) has three-inch-long insect-pollinated purple to blue flower spikes. The large flower spikes, and arrowhead glossy leaves, make it one of the most attractive native emergent plants from a distance or up close.
Pickerel-weed grows in small to large clumps in shallow marshes and shallow portions of lakes, streams, and rivers. The plants can spread rapidly through underground rhizomes. Many clumps are a single individual plant that spreads in this manner.
