What Are Aquatic Plants?

Are you looking for an easy way to teach your child about plants that live in the water? We’ve put together a set of free materials that parents and teachers can use right away. In this lesson, your child will dive into the fascinating world of aquatic plants.

We’ll explore how aquatic plants breathe underwater and the different ways they grow in ponds and lakes. Explore science in a more engaging way with captivating 3D videos and interactive quizzes. Download our app to get started!

What You Will Learn From This Lesson

How do plants survive while living in water?

While most land plants can’t breathe if there is too much water, aquatic plants have developed special structures to survive. For example, the lotus has many tiny holes in its petiole (the leaf stalk). These holes act like tunnels that allow air to go in and out, helping the plant get the air it needs.

Even the parts buried in the mud have adapted. The roots of a lotus are actually stems called rhizomes, which also contain holes to store air.

Based on how they grow in the water, these plants are categorized into different groups:

• Emergent Plants: These plants, like the lotus, reed, and cattail, have their roots in the water, but their stems and leaves stand upright above the surface.
• Floating-leaved Plants: These have leaves that float on the water’s surface. The giant water lily is a famous example; its leaves are so big and strong they can support a lot of weight!

Life on the surface and deep underwater

Some plants don’t stay in one spot; they travel across the water. The common water hyacinth is a free-floating plant that moves around on the surface. These plants use the water’s movement to find new places to grow.

Deep below the surface, you can find submerged plants. These plants live their entire lives completely underwater.

• Common Hornworts: These plants can carry out photosynthesis even with very weak sunlight. You might see bubbles around them—this is extra oxygen they produce and release into the water.
• Whorled Watermilfoils: These look like little green tails waving in the current.
• Water Thymes: Another common type of plant that makes its home entirely beneath the waves.

Whether they are standing tall above the pond or hiding deep in the lake, aquatic plants create an amazing kingdom under the water.

Fun Fact

• You can tell a submerged plant is working when you see tiny bubbles of oxygen on its leaves.
• Reeds and cattails are like the tall skyscrapers of the aquatic plant world.
• Lotus leaves are “water-proof” and have tiny bumps that make water roll off them like little silver marbles.
• Even though it grows in messy mud, the lotus flower always stands tall and stays perfectly clean and beautiful.
• A giant water lily leaf is like a “floating dinner plate” that can be big enough for a child to sit on!

Vocabulary

• Aquatic Plants: Plants that have evolved to live and grow specifically in watery environments like ponds, lakes, and rivers.
• Aerenchyma: Special internal structures, like the tiny holes found in a lotus petiole, that act as tunnels to transport and store air, allowing the plant to breathe underwater.
• Rhizomes: Thick, horizontal underground stems—such as the edible parts of a lotus—that grow in the mud and store nutrients and air.
• Emergent Plants: Water plants like reeds and cattails that are rooted in the soil underwater but have stems and leaves that grow straight up into the air.
• Floating-leaved Plants: Plants with roots in the bottom of a pond but leaves that rest flat on the water’s surface, such as the giant water lily.
• Free-floating Plants: Plants like the water hyacinth that are not rooted to the bottom and instead drift across the surface, moving with the current.
• Submerged Plants: Plants that live their entire life cycle completely underwater, such as hornworts or water thymes.
• Photosynthesis: The process aquatic plants use to create energy; submerged plants are specialized to do this even with the limited sunlight found deep underwater.