Duckweed

Duckweed, or Duck's Meat (Lemna), a curious genus of floating aquatic plants, represented by four British species, and forming the type of the order Lemnaceae, which is related to the aroids. They have floating frond-like green stems, which reproduce themselves by buds. From their margins long simple roots with prominent root-caps hang down into the water. The flowers, somewhat rarely produced, are in a small spathe in a lateral notch on the stem, and consist of one or two stamens or of a single one-chambered one-seeded ovary, with no perianth. They are among the most minute of flowering plants.