Identifying Pond Weeds with Yellow Flowers: A Guide to Common Species

Exploring Nature in New Hampshire

At this time of year, I don’t like to go too far from the water because some of our most beautiful water flowers start to bloom at the end of June or the beginning of July. I’m seeing a lot of fragrant white waterlilies this year, so they must be happy.

It’s hard for me to get a good picture of the lovely golden flames that burn in the middle of each waterlily.

This area is lucky to have a lot of streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds. No matter which one you pick, you can be sure that there will be life of all kinds there, from tiny creatures like this bug-eyed emerald damselfly…

…. to some of the largest, like this laughing great blue heron. They all find bodies of water because they know there will always be food there for them. Getting close to water is the best way to see how life changes. The water itself is life.

If you’re lucky, you might find a pond with clean, undeveloped shores where rare plants like pipewort and water lobelia can grow. There are many kinds of lobelia, and water lobelia looks like all of them. Each flower is only about half an inch long, though. People say that these plants can set seeds even when they are underwater, but I was able to take a picture of one of their seed pods for the first time this year. You can see it just below and to the left of the flowers. It can’t be much bigger than a pea.

The water lobelia flower has two shorter petals on top that are folded up, and the bases of its five petals are joined together to form a tube. All plants in the lobelia family will have this shape, which makes it easy to tell them apart. However, not all of them will be the same color. The water lobelia flower can be sky blue or so pale blue it looks like a dream. This one was somewhere in between.

When you first see pipewort, you might wonder how it can grow without leaves to make food. But if you look closely, you can see that its leaves are on the bottom of the pond. Small, clear water is where they live, and the leaves, which look like tiny pineapple tops, get a lot of light through the water. These little plants are also called hatpins, for obvious reasons.

The twists and ridges in a pipewort stem can be seen in this photo. They are what give it another name; seven angle pipewort. A quarter-inch-diameter flower head sits on top of the stem. It is made up of tiny white cottony bracts with black male stamens that are hard to see here and wispy white female flowers.

Pale St. John’s Wort grows near the water, but I’ve also seen it in the water, which means it likes it when your feet are wet. Its flowers are about half the size of a standard St. John’s Wort flower and not quite so yellow. Kind of a pale yellow, I’d say. In the beginning, it has a stem with a single flower at the very end. The stem then spreads out into many branches, as you can see here. That thing is about shin high, and you can’t miss where it grows because there are so many of them.

At first, it looked like I wouldn’t have any button bush flowers to share with you, but one day I went to the river and there they were. There are long, white tubular flowers that smell nice. Each one has an even longer style that makes the flower head look like a pincushion with spikes. It doesn’t take long for the white flowers to start turning brown, though. Later, the flower heads will turn into hard, brown or reddish seed heads with two small nuts inside. Ducks and shore birds love these nuts. People used to chew on the bark to get rid of toothaches, but scientists have found that the plant contains the poison cephalathin, so it shouldn’t be eaten.

Lake sedge is also called water sedge and it grows in large colonies very near water. I like seeing it move like waves in the wind with all its lights flashing.

Out of the mist came a dragonfly; the first calico pennant I’ve seen this season. This blog has already talked about pennant dragonflies. Their name comes from the way they hang from the very end of a stem or twig and let the wind blow them around like a flag. It doesn’t bother them, so they’ll stay where they are for a while, only getting up to catch an insect in the air. Then if they don’t feel threatened they’ll return to the same spot again and again.

The wing patterns make the calico pennant hard to confuse with any other dragonfly that I see. The female widow skimmer might be mistaken for it in a quick fly by, but not when perched. At first glance, Halloween pennants also look the same, but they have dark stripes that go from the tip of their wings to the end of their tails. And that makes this one easy to spot. But seeing them and trying to take pictures of them is a lot more fun for me than trying to name and describe them.

I met a man standing on the shore of a pond one day. It had a big “birder’s lens” on it, so I stopped and talked to him for a while. Even though, like me, he mostly took pictures for fun, he did tell me about an online photo store where I could see his pictures. I was surprised to see pictures and videos of mallard and wood ducklings sticking their bills into yellow pond lily flowers to get the seeds. They looked like they were it. I’ve heard that waterfowl ate the seeds but I had never seen it until then. I’ve also heard that Native Americans used to pop the seeds like popcorn.

I love the beautiful flowers of pickerel weed. There are lots of them this year, thankfully. Some places got so much rain last year that the water rose above the flowers and killed them.

I always stand still and look over a stand of pickerel weed for a few minutes. There are almost always bumblebees pollinating the flowers and several kinds of dragonflies buzzing around them. Some, like the slaty skimmer above, like to perch on the tallest ones but they’re picky about it. I’ve seen them touch each flower stalk as they fly from one to the next until they find the right one to land on.

There was a time when I felt something touch my arm. When I turned around to see what it was, I saw a frosted white face dragonfly sitting on a leaf just inches away. I thought I’d try taking a picture with my phone, but it just sat there and did nothing while I fumbled around. I was finally ready, and this is the only picture I’ve ever taken with my phone of a dragonfly. You can’t get ready for this; you just have to be ready for anything and be there at the right time. This little dragonfly is a one of the skimmers, and is about an inch and a quarter long. Waxy flakes much the same as those found on plums or blueberries give the male its pruinose “frosting. ”.

Male blue dashers aren’t cooperative enough for me to catch on camera with my phone (yet), but they are curious and like to hang out nearby to watch you. There will sometimes be three or four of them in a half-circle, all of their faces facing you. What do they see? I always wonder, but I think they’re just interested in the mosquitoes and deer flies buzzing around me. Since I attract their food, why wouldn’t they be interested in what I was doing?.

This female blue dasher was quite far from the males, and the pond. Across a road and down an embankment, in fact. Ladies, from what I’ve seen, like to hide in tall grass, like this one was doing. I’ve read that they have a shorter abdomen than the males, and this makes their wings appear longer. What looks like white parts of their face in this picture can look blue in lower light. They also have big red eyes.

Swamp candles are another of our native yellow loosestrifes. They often grow in big groups a few feet away from the edges of lakes and rivers, but sometimes their roots get too wet. The flower head (raceme) of a swamp candle is shaped like a club and has five petals of yellow flowers. They really do light up a swamp. Early colonists thought that our native yellow loosestrife could calm animals down, so they would tie the flowers to the backs of oxen to make them easier to handle.

I’ve always liked the strange angular stems of bur reed. This plant grows just off shore in shallow water and can multiply rapidly. There are both male and female flowers on the same stem. The male flowers are staminate, which are smaller and fuzzy, and the female flowers are pistillate, which are bigger.

The male flowers die off after pollination, and the female flowers turn into a bur-like cluster of beaked fruits that ducks and other waterfowl eat. Dart flies and damselflies both like to rest on bur reed, so when you see these plants, stop and take a good look.

This insect spends a lot of time underwater. As a nymph, it can stay underwater for up to two or three years. The nymphs breathe through gills and eat just about anything. Insect larvae, worms, snails, crayfish, tadpoles, and leeches are all food for a dragonfly nymph. When the nymph comes out of the water after a short rest, the dragonfly shape we know will start to show through the exoskeleton. It with breathe through holes in its abdomen called spiracles. The entire process of emergence can take hours, with many rest periods. In the picture above, you can see a dragonfly’s emerging body on the right and its empty exoskeleton stuck to a blade of grass on the left. There’s a good chance that this dragonfly came out of that exoskeleton, but I can’t say for sure because I wasn’t there. What I did see is the dragonfly shaking and stretching itself several times. The dragonfly shown is a widow skimmer, either a female or immature male.

This picture of a female widow skimmer dragonfly was taken right after she shed her wings, so it is called a “teneral” female widow skimmer. A teneral imago is “an insect’s imago right after molting, during which it is soft and immature in color.” They’ll stay like this, pumping what is like dragonfly “blood” (hemolymph) into the wings until they get stiff. They will also take on their final adult coloration. The wings in the picture are so new that they are still wrinkled from being wrapped up. At this stage, they can only fly a few feet, just far enough to find a place to hide. This is when they are most likely to be hurt. I’ve read that an estimated 80% of dragonflies eaten by birds are in this stage.

When I went back the next day, the shore of the pond was full of male widow skimmers. The day before, when the females were molting, I hadn’t seen a single one. They are easily spotted with their white wing markings. I’ve seen that male widow skimmers like to stay in tall grass and hang off stalks about halfway down their length. This one was hanging from the flowering stalk of broadleaf plantain, which is a common lawn “weed. ” After living for years underwater most adult dragonflies live only two to eight weeks, depending on species.

You can find swamp milkweed on the edges of ponds and streams sometimes, but I wouldn’t say it’s common. I think it’s the most beautiful milkweed, and when a great spangled fritillary butterfly lands on it and drinks from its nectar, it looks even more beautiful.

I was a little disappointed but not surprised at the rose pogonia orchid’s meager showing this year. There were a lot of them blooming here last year, so it makes sense that they need a break. Many plants will have a feeble bloom after a heavy bloom year.

Orchids are notorious for just disappearing. One year they’ll be there and the next, nothing. That’s the only rose pogonia colony I know of, so I hope that’s not what’s happening to these. This picture from a few years ago, taken at Distant Hill Gardens in Walpole, shows how close I can get without a boat. You should really go there in June if you want to see these orchids, as well as sundews, pitcher plants, and many other rare native plants. It’s always best to call ahead to see what’s blooming.

At this point in the year, there are so many dragonflies that I hope no one is getting tired of them. But they won’t be here forever; they’ll be gone by November. For now, I’m dangling them like a carrot to make you want to see them for yourself. I really hope you go outside and enjoy what you see enough to want to stay a while. If it isn’t too hot where you are, that is. We need to be sensible in this heat.

Imagine becoming like you were when you were a very young child, before you knew what words meant and before your opinions took over. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. You are like a flower, the wind, the ocean, and the sun. ~Miguel Angel Ruiz.

Thanks for stopping in.

The weather in this part of New Hampshire is cloudy, hot, and humid, with highs in the mid-90s F. and tropical humidity. When that happens I think of being by the water, and that’s what this post is about. I checked out some of our nearby ponds, such as Perkin’s Pond (shown above), to see what kinds of flowers and plants could be found in the water. I found plenty and I hope you’ll enjoy seeing them.

The swamp candle (Lysimachia terrestris), which I think is the first plant in the loosestrife family to bloom here, is one of my favorite flowers to see by the pond. It’s in their name, so swamp candles like wet spots. They often grow right where the water meets the shore. Though they usually stay at about 2 feet tall I saw one last week that was chest height. They usually grow in large groups.

The five yellow petals of the swamp candle flower have two red dots at the base of them. This makes the flowers look a lot like whorled loosestrife flowers, but a little smaller. A major difference between the two plants is how the leaves don’t grow in whorls on swamp candles. All of our yellow loosestrife flowers have at least a little red on them, no matter which plant they’re on.

One of my favorite aquatic plants is pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata. ) It grows off shore in what are sometimes huge colonies. Early people washed and boiled this plant’s young leaves and shoots and used them as pot herbs. They also ground the seeds into grain. The plant gets its name from the pickerel fish, which is thought to hide among its underwater stems.

Pickerel weed has flat, purple flowers on spikey flower heads that make a fruit with one seed inside. Ducks and muskrats love the seeds and deer, geese and muskrats eat the leaves. There is a good chance that the water where pickerel weed grows is shallow and calm. However, I have heard that plants can grow in water that is 6 feet deep sometimes. I’m always surprised that the flower spikes and buds are so hairy. It seems odd for a plant that grows up out of the water.

This photo that I took previously is of a pickerel weed bud. It shows how the flowers spiral up the stalk and open from bottom to top. Being able to get this close to one is a rare event.

There are yellow pond lily (Nuphar luteum) flowers that are almost always just above the water. This makes them very easy to see. Cup-shaped, with six petals-like sepals, they grow in water that isn’t more than 18 inches deep.

NOTE: A kind reader told me that this plant is now called Nuphar variegata, which I didn’t know. Thanks Sara!.

A lot of yellow petals and stamens are inside the outer sepals. In the middle is a yellow stigma that looks like a disk and has 8 to 24 lines or rays on top of it. Something has been eating the sepals of these flowers as you can see in this photo. Many flowers are seen floating free because they’ve been pulled up. Since the plant is also called beaver root they might have had a hand in it. The plant is also a favorite of both painted and snapping turtles, so it could be them. I find many along the shoreline with their outer sepals gone. Native American people ground the plant’s roots into flour, which was a very good food source. They also popped the seeds like popcorn, but if the seeds aren’t processed right, they can taste very bitter and bad. The plant was also medicinally valuable to many native tribes.

Potamogeton natans, or Floating Pondweed, is so common that it shows up in a lot of these pictures of other plants without my having to look for it. It grows best in full sun in warm, still water up to 4 feet deep and likes to root in the mud. It is also known as long-leafed pondweed. It does flower but they’re green and small and hard to see. Birds of prey, like ducks and swans, eat this plant’s seeds and leaves, and muskrats like the stems. The leaves are eaten by many types of turtles, so it seems like almost all aquatic and land animals.

The rarest plant in this post has to be the water lobelia (Lobelia dortmanna. It only grows in one pond, and there are only a few of them there. I read that the plant can remove carbon dioxide from the rooting zone instead of the air, which is an interesting trait. It is said to be an indicator of infertile and relatively pristine shoreline wetlands.

The flowers are less than half an inch long, pale blue or white, and not very showy. They have 5 sepals and the base of the 5 petals is fused into a tube. The 2 shorter upper petals fold up. I read that the flowers can bloom and make seeds even when they are underwater, but these plants grew out at sea with their flowers above the water. The seed pods are said to contain numerous seeds which are most likely eaten by waterfowl. To get a picture of some of the plants in this post, I had to stand right at the water’s edge and lean out over it with one hand. That should give you an idea of how close to the shore they grow.

Plants and flowers aren’t all you’ll find on the shore of a pond. He was calm enough that I could walk right up to him and take this picture with my cell phone shoot. Were it always that easy. The round spot behind the frog’s eye is called the tympanum, which is an external ear. It’s much bigger than the eye in male frogs and the same size or smaller than the eye in female frogs.

Nature seems to throw things at you sometimes, like this spangled skimmer dragonfly that kept landing at my feet today. Many dragonflies return to the same perch over and over, and this one must have really liked that white stone. From what I’ve read, the “spangles” are the streaks of black and white that run along the tips of its wings. Only females and immature males have them. I believe this one was a male because females are yellow and brown. Since my track record with insect identification isn’t very good however, I’d welcome any input. In any case, I found this dragonfly in the wet, marshy areas next to ponds, where it likes to hunt. I’m sure Mr. Bullfrog would have liked to have been there.

There’s nothing strange about seeing cattails (Typha latifolia) next to a pond, but it’s not often that you see a single plant in bloom. Cattail flowers start out with the female green flowers near the top of a tall stalk and the fluffy male pollen-bearing green flowers above them. After being fertilized, the female parts change color from green to dark brown, and the male flowers fall off, leaving behind a sharp, stiff spike on top of the known cigar-shaped seed head. Cattail flowers are very prolific; one stalk can produce an estimated 220,000 seeds. Cattails usually grow in huge groups that make walls of green that can’t be broken through. That’s why I was so shocked to find just one plant.

Bur reed, or Sparganium americanum, grows near the water, but I’ve also seen it in wet, swampy sites on the edges of forests. There are two types of flowers on this plant. At the stem’s top grow the smaller, fuzzy staminate male flowers. Lower down grow the bigger pistillate female flowers. The female bur reed flowers look spiky rather than fuzzy. They’re less than a half inch across. The male staminate flowers of bur reed are smaller and look fuzzy from a distance. Birds like ducks and other waterfowl eat the fruits that grow from the female flowers after they have been pollinated. The fruits look like burs and have beaks. The flowers of bur reed always remind me of those of buttonbush.

Cranberry plants have just started blooming. These flower petals curve backwards on most cranberry blossoms, but sometimes a blossom wants to be different, like this one did. I usually find them in wet, boggy areas but these grew on an embankment by a small pond. We have two kinds here, the common cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos) and the small cranberry (Vaccinium microcarpum. ) I think these were the common cranberry.

Cranberry flowers were first called crane berries because early European settlers thought they looked like the neck, head, and bill of a crane. Over time, the name stuck and the flowers were called cranberries. In a strange way, the flower petals curve backwards almost into a ball, like these pictures show. But when I look at them, I don’t see cranes. Cranberries were an important ingredient of Native American pemmican, which was made of dried meat, berries, and fat. Pemmican saved the life of many an early settler.

Pipewort (Eriocaulon aquaticum) usually grows in ankle deep standing water. It’s rare to be able to see the whole plant because the lower stems grow underwater, but there are basal leaves growing at the base of each stem. I’m guessing that they must still get enough sunlight through the water to photosynthesize. Some people call it “seven angle pipewort” because the hollow stem twists and has seven ridges on it. It is also called hatpins, for obvious reasons.

If you’re really, really lucky, you might be able to see the reproductive parts sticking out of the tiny flowers that look like cotton balls. On this day I got to see several male anthers. They sometimes make the 1/4 inch diameter flower heads look like they’re black and white from a distance. I believe the gray, thread like bits showing in the previous photo are the female stigmas. You can just see a few poking up in this shot as well. Some people think that flies pollinate the flowers, but I’m not sure.

Floating heart plants (Nyphoides cordata) that grow close enough to the shore to take pictures are also hard to come by. Their common name comes from the small, heart-shaped leaves that are green, reddish, or purple. The leaves are about an inch and a half wide. I think they are our smallest water lily. Most of the time, they grow just out to sea where you need a boat or to roll up your pant legs.

Its tiny flowers are about the size of an aspirin, but they never seem to open all the way. They resemble a Lilliputian version of the much larger fragrant white water lily. They grow in bogs, ponds, slow streams, and rivers, sometimes by the hundreds.

This photo from a few years ago shows the scale of a floating heart flower. Just about the size of Abraham Lincoln’s head on a penny.

I saw a lot of golden ragwort plants (Packera aurea) blooming in a swamp last year, but this year there were only a few. This plant doesn’t grow very often in this part of the state, but you can find it now and then. Golden ragwort is in the aster family and is considered our earliest blooming aster. Native Americans used the plant to treat a wide range of illnesses because it was poisonous enough that most animals, even deer, wouldn’t eat it. Even though it’s not really a pond plant, it does like wet spots, and I can see it growing along the water. It usually grows in full sunlight but it does tolerate some shade.

Droopy fringed sedge, or Carex crinita, likes it when its feet are wet. It is a very common plant that I see along the edges of rivers and ponds everywhere I go. The hanging flower heads make it attractive enough to also be seen in gardens. Ducks and other waterfowl feed on the seeds, and muskrats will eat almost the entire plant. Native Americans used sedge leaves to make rope, baskets, mats, and even clothing.

No post about ponds and aquatic plants would be complete without a fragrant white waterlily in it. I can’t think of a pond in this area that doesn’t have them. In fact, I know of at least one pond where there are so many that you can hardly see the water. We could see the bright golden fire inside each flower because this one was tilted just right. In my opinion it is the most beautiful of all our native aquatic plants.

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. ~Loren Eiseley

Thanks for stopping in. I hope everyone has a safe and happy fourth of July!

Identifying and Managing Those Pesky Pond Weeds

FAQ

What are the yellow flowers around ponds?

What aquatic weeds have yellow flowers?

How do I get rid of water primrose?

What are the most common pond weeds?

Are pond weeds a problem?

Pond weeds are a common problem in large natural ponds. As ponds mature and age, they often accumulate nutrients (eutrophication) and sludge, which causes excessive growth of plants and / or algae. Each year, the overall growth of both beneficial and unwanted plants increases and can eventually become a problem.

What are invasive pond weeds?

Invasive pond weeds tend to have a tolerance for a wide range of conditions. They come in 3 types – submerged, free-floating, and emergent plants. They possess adaptations for growth and survival wherever there is fresh water. Their spread is emphasized particularly during warm months and whenever nutrient levels peak.

What weeds have yellow flowers?

Another common weed with yellow flowers is the creeping buttercup. This low-growing plant can be found in wet soil, where it sinks fibrous roots. Flowers about a half-inch in diameter have five to seven petals and clusters of stamens and pistils at the center. A dense lawn that’s well-drained will prevent creeping buttercup from taking over.

Are yellow weeds invasive?

However, other small plants are typically recognized as weeds. These include dandelions, purslane, ragwort, and wood sorrel. Flowering weeds with yellow flowers can add a burst of color to any garden or landscape—wanted or unwanted. Many non-native plants are invasive; however, many yellow-flowering weeds benefit the ecosystem.

What are the different types of pond weeds?

Below is a handy guide of all the various types of pond weeds with pictures to help you identify the weeds in your pond. And they are broken down by the different types of pond weeds – emergent, floating, and submerged – with tips on how to effectively get rid of each one for good!

Do pond weeds deprive ponds of sunlight and oxygen?

Pond weeds can deprive ponds of sunlight and oxygen. Des Blenkinsopp / CC BY-SA 2.0 Some aquatic plants have a knack for spreading all throughout their freshwater environments. In a pond, freshwater can be described as a continuous or homogeneous fluid that contains dissolved nutrients and minerals.