Water hyacinth seedlings are perennial herbs. The creeping stems are slender and elongated, sprawling. The leaves are numerous; the leaf blades are papery, mostly nearly circular, or kidney-shaped, or broadly ovate. Flower spikes 1-4, bracts linear; flowers small, sepals green, ovate, reflexed; petals 5, narrowly elliptic, nearly as long as the sepals, filaments about 2 mm long; the receptacle is cylindrical. The infructescence is ellipsoid-globose, the achenes small and very numerous, obliquely obovate. Flowering and fruiting period from May to September. Grows in saline alkaline swamps or lake shores. Widely distributed in the temperate zones of Asia and North America.

Perennial herb. Stems prostrate, slender, and creeping. Leaves numerous; leaf blades papery, mostly nearly circular, or reniform, broadly ovate, 0.5-2.5 cm long, slightly wider than long, base cordate, truncate, or broadly cuneate, margin with 3-7 (-11) rounded teeth, sometimes 3-5-lobed, glabrous; petioles 2-12 cm long, slightly pubescent. Flower spikes 1-4, 5-15 cm tall, glabrous; bracts linear; flowers small, 6-8 mm in diameter; sepals green, ovate, 3-4 mm long, glabrous, reflexed; petals 5, narrowly elliptic, nearly as long as sepals, apex rounded, base with a claw about 1 mm long, with a dot-like nectar sinus at the top of the claw; anthers 0.5-0.8 mm long, filaments about 2 mm long; receptacle cylindrical, about 5 mm long, with short pubescence. Aggregate fruit ellipsoid, about 5 mm in diameter; achenes small and very numerous, obliquely obovate, 1.2-1.5 mm long, slightly inflated on both sides, with 3-5 longitudinal ribs, glabrous, beak extremely short, dot-like. Flowering and fruiting period from May to September.