Potamogeton alpinus
Encyclopedia
Potamogeton alpinus is a species of aquatic plant
Aquatic plant
Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments. They are also referred to as hydrophytes or aquatic macrophytes. These plants require special adaptations for living submerged in water, or at the water's surface. Aquatic plants can only grow in water or in soil that is...

 known by the common names alpine pondweed and red pondweed. It is native to much of the Northern Hemisphere, including Eurasia, Greenland, Canada, and northern parts of the United States. It grows in water bodies such as ponds, lakes, marsh
Marsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....

es, and slow-moving streams. This is a perennial herb anchoring in the mud substrate via rhizome
Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes...

. It produces a cylindrical stem, sometimes with branches, approaching two meters in maximum length. It has lance-shaped leaves up to 8 centimeters long and 2 wide. The plant can be distinguished from other pondweeds
Potamogeton
Potamogeton is a genus of aquatic, mostly freshwater, plants of the family Potamogetonaceae. Most are known by the common name pondweed, although many unrelated plants may be called pondweed, such as Canadian pondweed...

 by the red color of its herbage. The inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

is a spike of flowers a few centimeters long rising above the water surface.

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