Plant of the Week April 18: Pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata)

Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) is a common plant of ponds, streams, marshes, and wet ditches of the southeast. This plants blooms from March into November in Florida. This prolific grower can cover large areas (as seen in the bottom of the two pictures above). usually it grows to be about 2-3 feet tall. The leaves are generally large with them being usually twice as long as wide and following a lance-shape. However, there can be alot of variability! Considering how long the blooming season is, it is often easiest to identify this plant by its violet-blue spike of flowers (although sometimes they are so pale as to appear white).

I often see birds hunkering down or flitting between patches of pickerelweed as well as numerous insects (bees, butterflies, etc) visiting for nectar.