In November of 2020 I did a Fall Cypress photo workshop in Louisiana and Texas. There are many invasive plants in the lakes and bayous and one is the water hyacinth. The plants themselves look similar to pickerel weed, but the flowers are quite different. I think it was brought in as an ornamental for garden ponds, but of course escaped and is ravaging the ecosystem. It got so bad that officials in Louisiana or Texas contemplated bringing in hippos to eat it. Just think what they would have done to the ecosystem!
It’s been in the US since the late 1800s and is native to South America. It forms dense thickets and grows quickly. It crowds out native vegetation and causes rapid changes in dissolved oxygen levels - I witnessed this firsthand - fish (mostly mullets) literally leap out of the water so they can breathe. I kid you not.
Anyway…this image was taken just after sunrise and I think it demonstrates that invasives, while dangerous and disruptive, can be beautiful. It wasn’t the only time water hyacinth was a feature of my photos down there.
Specific Feedback Requested
Not looking for specific feedback, but chime in as usual!
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Panasonic DC-G9
LUMIX G VARIO 35-100/F2.8
ƒ/6.3 | 57.0 mm | 1/100 | ISO 200
Handheld in a kayak
Cropped in Lr for emphasis on the water hyacinth - fooled about with the green channel to bring up more variations of shade. Dodged and burned to bring out the Spanish Moss (which is neither). General improvements to clarity and sharpness. Ps to eliminate a few bright distractions.
Kris, the mix of hyacinth and spanish moss looks very good. Getting the hyacinth at the bottom sharp would be nice, but a challenge from the kayak. Having the bottom hyacinth in shadow helps reduce attention there.
A nice composition, Kris, and it really emphasizes the density of the Hyacinths. Florida has the same issue. I was on the St. Johns five years ago and an environmental group stayed in the same place we were one night. They didn’t have much good to say about that species!
Beautiful tree and light on it and the hyacinth makes a nice but unfortunate foreground. Thanks for the background on it. Your posts are always greatly informative and appreciated.
A very bad idea that would not have worked. Water hyacinth has a very low nutritional value, and hippos will eat almost anything else in preference.
We have had extensive experience with water hyacinth in southern Africa, starting in Lake Kariba, at one time the largest dam in Africa, and it is named Kariba Weed for that reason. It spread throughout southern Africa from there, seeds carried on the hulls of boats. They are close to impossible to remove except by pressure washing. At one time you were required to have a permit and certification to move your boat from one body of water to another. Not sure that it is still the case – in any event, Kariba weed is in every waterway now, so it doesn’t really matter.
Agreed, bad idea. Bringing in yet more non-native biologicals to deal with others is never the answer and I’m really glad even the nuts in Texas decided not to. W.H. is terrible but, so is this stuff -
It’s giant salvinia and it’s starting to cover lakes and bayous like a carpet. Nasty, fast-growing and so damn hard to paddle through. Other boats’ propellers get hopelessly tangled in the stuff. Here’s a close up with some poor spatterdock trying to hang on -
When I was in a back part of Caddo lake an agency (not sure which) with a couple of airboats were spraying to try to eradicate it. Who knows if they ever will. Probably like the Water Hyacinth, we’re stuck with the stuff.
