Yellow Floating Heart Swimming In A Pond Near You!

(yellow floating heart found at photobucket.com under creative commons )

The yellow floating heart is found all over Alabama and 14 other states in the United States. These are extremely beautiful plants. Claude Monet painted pink lotus's  that invaded ponds where he lived. There are parts of Alabama that have this beautiful flower invading their ponds and small lakes. 

    The yellow floating heart can be found also in Asia. Like many other plants that are within our area were first invasive in other countries such as southeastern Asia. We just brought them over for our  botanical gardens within 1800's-1920. These flowers have shiny green leaves kind of like silver dollars. The flowers have five pedals and are small like a yellow trifolium flower (we'll get into that one later)

     Each plant produces a fruit that contains seeds. The plant causes problems with boating and masses in the water, but provides insects with a place to stay and fish a place to eat those insects. This flowering floating heart,  this classification is under nymphoides peltata