Lemna minuta Kunth, 1815 [1816].

Verloove, Filip, 2021, New records in vascular plants alien to Tenerife (Spain, Canary Islands), Biodiversity Data Journal 9, pp. 62878-62878 : 62878

Lemna minuta Kunth, 1815 [1816].

Lemna minuta Nov. Gen. Spec. (quarto ed.) 1: 372. 1815 [1816].

Distribution

TENERIFE: Santa Úrsula, La Quinta, seepage area, 11.12.2018, F. Verloove s.c. https://observation.org/observation/205285824/

Notes

This American duckweed is a recent newcomer in the flora of the Canary Islands. It was first reported from several localities in Gran Canaria ( Verloove 2013, Salas-Pascual and Quintana Vega 2016), subsequently also from La Palma ( Otto and Verloove 2020). It is a naturalised weed that also occurs in natural habitats. As it strongly resembles L. minor L., it is undoubtedly overlooked. L. minuta is differentiated from the latter, based on the smaller fronds (even the largest are less than 3 mm long) with a single, slightly raised vein.

In La Quinta, a small population was discovered in a seepage zone in 2018. It should be looked for elsewhere in the northern part of the Island.

Lemna minuta is a well-known transformer species throughout the invaded range ( Paolacci et al. 2018).