F. However, water hyacinth should never be deliberately introduced to lakes, rivers, streams, or drainage ditches. Habitat Water hyacinths grow over a wide variety of wetland types from lakes, streams, ponds, waterways, ditches, and backwater areas. Water hyacinths obtain their nutrients directly from the water and have been used in wastewater treatment facilities. They prefer and grow most prolifically in nutrient-enriched waters. New plant populations often form from rooted parent plants and wind movements and currents help contribute to their wide distribution.
Linked plants form dense rafts in the water and mud.
The fibrous root system of water hyacinth provides nesting habitat for invertebrates and insects. Leaf blades and petioles are occasionally used by coots. However, whatever benefits this plant provides to wildlife are greatly overshadowed by the environmental invasiveness of this noxious species. History It is believed that the water hyacinth was introduced first into the United States at the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition of 1884-1885 in Louisiana. A Florida visitor to the Exposition apparently returned home with water hyacinth plants and subsequently released them into the St. Johns River.