English: Spotless watermeal; Rootless duckweed.
Thai: Khai-nam, eeaming eggs of the water.
Region: Europe, Africa, Asia.
Habitat: quiet water bodies, ponds.
Botany: smallest vascular plant on Earth; aquatic; leaves 1 mm wide, with a flat top that floats at the water's surface, with few parallel rows of stomata; root absent; flower minute, one stamen and one pistil; multiplies by vegetative reproduction; in cool conditions the plant becomes dormant and sinks to the bed of the water body to overwinter as a turion; mixotroph, meaning own energy by photosynthesis or absorb it from the environment in the form of dissolved carbon.
Use: nutritious food; prolific in reproduction, doubling its population in 4 days; for absorbing and metabolizing pollutants; take up large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus from the water; food for animals, fish and chickens.
Content: 40% protein by dry weight and its turion is about 40% starch; many amino acids, calcium, magnesium, zinc; vitamin B12.