Parrot's feather
Myriophyllum aquaticum
Also known as Parrot feather, Brazilian watermilfoil, Myriophyllum brasiliense, Myriophyllum proserpinacoides
Invasive. Banned in the EU and Great Britain as an invasive alien species and prohibited in several US states, including Washington. Never release into the wild; dispose of trimmings in the trash.
Care at a glance
- Light
- High light
- CO2
- CO₂ beneficial
- Growth rate
- Fast
- Placement
- Background
- Type
- Stem
- Temperature
- 64–82°F (18–28°C)
- pH
- 6.0–8.0
- Hardness
- 3–18 dGH
- Max height
- 15.7 in (40 cm)
- Spread
- 3.1 in (8 cm)
- Nutrient uptake
- Root + water column
- Growth region
- Submersed or emersed
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Origin
- South America (Amazon lowlands); introduced on every other inhabited continent
- Family
- Haloragaceae
Overview
More a pond and open-top plant than a classic aquarium stem: kept fully submersed it demands strong light and still reaches for the surface, where the emergent feather tips form. Any fragment with a node roots, so it is one of the easiest plants there is to propagate and one of the hardest to get rid of. Never let trimmings reach a drain or a waterway.
In the wild
Native to lowland rivers, marshes and lake margins across warm South America, rooted in soft mud with stems trailing across the surface and feathery blue-green tips standing above it. The pond and aquarium trade carried it worldwide, and escaped fragments now clog waterways on every inhabited continent, which is why so many jurisdictions regulate it.
Good to know
A watermilfoil in the family Haloragaceae with two distinct forms on one stem: limp, reddish submersed growth and stiff, waxy, blue-green emergent tips whose needle-fine whorls give the plant its name. It is dioecious, and only female plants are known outside South America, so every introduced population in the world is a clone spreading purely by fragments.
Did you know
Every parrot's feather growing outside South America is female. No seed has ever been set abroad; the plant conquered six continents entirely by cuttings.
Appears in
High-light plants · Background plants · Stem plants · Beginner plants · Fast growers
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