What type of plant is a Water chestnut My wife and I were trying to figure it out over dinner.?

DESCRIPTION Water Chestnut (Trapa natans) is an aquatic plant that is found in slow moving nutrient filled waters such as ponds, lakes, and shallow streams. The plant's size although characteristically small, may have branching stems reaching lengths of 16 feet. Leaves from this plant are both surfaced and submerged; Surface leaves are triangular in shape with long petioles which have an inflated spongy region (air bladder) while the submerged leaves are opposite and contain numerous adventitious roots. Water chestnuts begin to flower in mid to late July, with their nuts ripening approximately one month later. Flowering and seed production continue into the fall when frost kills the floating rosettes. The mature nuts sink to the bottom when dropped and may be able to produce new plants for up to 12 years. The plant spreads either by the rosettes detaching from their stems and floating to another area, or more often by the nuts being swept by currents or waves to other parts of the lake or river. The plant overwinters entirely by seed. Water chestnut is a nuisance aquatic plant that limits boating and fishing in infested areas. It has the potential to infest wetlands and critical environmental habitats in other areas of the state.









(Source: 1. Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Conservation, http://www.anr.state.vt.us/dec/waterq/an... 2. Water Chestnut: Environmental Fact Sheet, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Service, http://www.des.state.nh.us/factsheets/bb...

What type of plant is a Water chestnut My wife and I were trying to figure it out over dinner.?
A water chestnut is a grass-like sedge grown for its edible corms. It has tube-shaped, leafless green stems that grow to about 1.5 metres high.



The Chinese water chestnut is native to China and is widely cultivated in flooded paddy fields in southern China and parts of the Philippines.



The small, rounded corms have a crispy white flesh and can be eaten raw, slightly boiled, grilled, pickled, or tinned. They are a popular ingredient in Western-style Chinese dishes. In China, they are most often eaten raw, sometimes sweetened. They can also be ground into a flour which is used especially to make fried cakes called matigao.



The corms are rich in carbohydrates (about 90% by dry weight), especially starch (about 60% by dry weight), and are also a good source of dietary fiber, riboflavin, vitamin B6, potassium, copper, and manganese.
Reply:here is a website to help u understand what it is.Threats to Native Habitats



Water chestnut is a highly competitive floating-leaved aquatic plant that forms dense, continuous mats over the water surface of lakes and slow moving waters. The mats are so dense that they impede fishing, hunting, swimming, boating and even commercial navigation. The plants disrupt and replace native aquatic plant communities while providing little or no value to wildlife. Decomposition of the large volume of plants may also contribute to lower levels of dissolved oxygen in shallower waters. The resulting control measures necessary to clear waterways can be expensive: $3.7 million to manage this species in Lake Champlain from 1982 to 2000.