Some plants with floating leaves also have submerged leaves, but they are still considered floating-leaved aquatics. Aquatic plants which exhibit this floating-leaved form include water lilies and duckweed. Emergent plants have some parts of the plant in contact with the air above the water's surface. Examples of emergent aquatic plants include bur-reeds and Sagittaria or Arrowhead. In Colorado, aquatic plants can be found from the plains out east to subalpine lakes high in the Rocky Mountains, in a wide variety of water bodies.
Aquatic plants grow in ponds and streams, peat bogs, and abandoned gravel pits.
Typically, ponds support a more diverse variety of aquatic plants than streams do because there are more nutrients available, and the water moves at a much slower pace in ponds. In addition, plant growth in ponds is a reflection of the conditions of the body of water including water depth, nutrient availability, soil type, and geology. Lakes and ponds found at the highest elevations generally support little to no aquatic plants because the water is too cold, the sides can be very steep, and few nutrients are available for plant growth. Mountain tarns or pools are often steep-sided with gravelly bottoms. Because these lack many nutrients, vegetation is sparse.