Taxonomy of duckweeds (Lemnaceae), potential new crop plants

Abstract

Duckweeds are increasingly gaining interest because of their potential as a new aquaculture crop. In the present era of high through-put research, duckweed taxonomy has to be emphasized in order to support and strengthen scientific communication and commercial application. Since the publication of the fundamental monograph on Lemnaceae by E. Landolt in 1986, a number of changes have taken place in terms of their taxonomic position and nomenclature, which we summarize in this review. We report here about the systematic position of this plant family and the changes in its organization. Three additional species were identified; one new genus and subsequently one of the species was re-defined after the publication of the key of determination in 1986. At present Lemnaceae comprises of 37 species grouped into five genera. We envisage that this review will serve as a compilation of all these recent revisions, describing the state of art of duckweed systematics.