So I haven’t posted anything for months and today I finally wrote a piece about Wolffia, the smallest flowering plant, often confused with duckweed (Lemna). I just got around to reading yesterday’s Boston Globe, and, lo and behold, there is an article about cleaning nutrients from a pond that fostered the growth of duckweed at Drumlin Farm. Unfortunately, the web based article doesn’t include the photos that were in the paper. If you have the paper from Sunday look at the last page of the Globe West section. The picture at the upper right shows two frogs poking their heads through the “duckweed”. And there are indeed a few individuals of duckweed but the vast majority of plants are Wolffia. The difference in size is clear, even in black and white. The incorrect identification has no bearing on the story or the excellent effort being made at Drumlin Farm to control pollution.
But…this is the sort of minor point that can be irksome for scientists. A robin is not a goldfinch. I know they are both birds but they don’t behave the same way or feed in a similar manner. I put out different bird feeders for the two birds. So, just like a birder might be bothered by pictures of the two being captioned incorrectly, I feel a minor irritation in the same way. Again, this has absolutely no negative connotations on the great work done by Mass Audubon but just gives me a chance to be on the soap box.
