Floating Aquatics
| The Plant Profiles that follow give a brief introduction to some of the more popular and interesting groups of floating aquatics that are available to the water gardener. It is these, in combination with deep water aquatics, that produce surface-shading foliage. Along with the submerged aquatics, which mop up excess nutrients, they ensure that a balanced ecosystem is maintained within the pond.
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 Floating plants make an important contribution to the balance of the pond.
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| Floating plants, and surface foliage from deep water aquatics, reduces the amount of sunlight that falls directly beneath the water, thereby reducing the ability of the algae to prosper. Some floating aquatics are carpeting plants. Amongst these are the Duckweed species and the Fairy Mosses or Azolla. The former are tiny flowering plants, the blossoms being so minute that a magnifying glass is necessary to appreciate them fully.
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 Azolla filiculoides
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Azolla on the other hand is technically a floating fern and does not flower at all.Carpeting aquatics are very useful for the management of the surface cover of a pond, but care should be taken to ensure that they do not get out of control, nor that they escape unwittingly into native habitats. Riccia and Ricciocarpus are fascinating little floating plants for the tub garden or small patio pond.
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| These are also non-flowering aquatics, and unlike either Azolla or Lemna are not likely to become invasive. Indeed care is needed with Riccia to ensure that its tiny filigree foliage, which has led to its common name of Crystalwort, remains disentangled from filamentous algae. A good reason for having it close to hand in a tub or sink garden. There are floating plants that will also root in mud or shallow water and behave like marginal aquatics if the water level falls.
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 Ricciocarpus natans
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 Ceratopteris thalictroides
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In the case of the tropical Ceratopteris thalictroides, the foliage also changes in character and the plant becomes unrecognisable. Floating aquatics are also very susceptible to changes in water quality, especially the nutrient level, particularly towards the end of the summer may change size or foliage colour as a result of this. There are a number of floating aquatics that are carnivorous.
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Amongst those most likely to be encountered by the water gardener the Bladderworts or Utricularia, are very familiar. These have trailing strings of elegant filigree foliage that float as if suspended, just beneath the surface of the water. Amongst the mass of tangled foliage tiny bladders are produced which capture unwary aquatic insects. These are digested and help defray any deficiency in nutrients that the plants might experience.
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 Utricularia foliage conceals tiny carnivorous bladders.
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