Characteristics and Main Varieties of Water Dropwort

Water dropwort is also called Chu kui. It is cultivated more extensively south of the Yangtze River. The tender stems and leaf stalks are used as food, with a rather good flavor, and it is a high-yielding aquatic vegetable that can be marketed in large quantities during the spring off-season.

Characteristics and traits

Water dropwort has wide adaptability to environmental conditions and strong cold resistance; after frost it can very well maintain green leaves, and cases of death from low temperatures are few. The suitable temperature for cultivation is around 20°C. Below 10°C, the stems and leaves stop growing. In summer high temperatures, growth ages, but it remains evergreen all year round.

The growth and development of water dropwort are affected by day length. In autumn and winter, when the daylight is short, it is the period of vigorous vegetative growth of the basal leaves of water dropwort. Under long-day conditions in spring and summer, water dropwort instead shifts to internode elongation and creeping stem growth, which is also the reproductive growth period of flowering and seed setting.

Water dropwort likes moisture and fears drought, and needs sufficient water during the growing period. At the seedling stage, in order to improve soil aeration and promote seedling growth, a shallow water level of 3-7 cm can be maintained. After the plants grow larger, very deep water is needed, to the extent that the leaves are not submerged.

The roots of water dropwort are fine and white. The stem is hollow without pith, has ridges, and grows upright. The basal leaves are clustered, bipinnately compound, with leaflets ovate or rhombic-elliptic, finely pointed at the tip, and coarsely serrate at the leaf margin. The leaf stalks are slender and mostly reddish. In summer it flowers from the tip of the stem; the flowers are small, white, in umbels; the fruit is brown, elliptical, sharply pointed at the top and hairless, containing one seed; the fully ripe fruit falls naturally and drifts with the water, so it is not easy to harvest. Common varieties of water dropwort include:

1. Small-leaf water dropwort: The plant is 40-45 cm tall, the leaves are ovate, 2 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, the leaf stalk is 23 cm long and 1 cm in transverse diameter, and greenish white.

2. Large-leaf water dropwort: The plant is 65-70 cm tall, the leaves are ovate-round, 4.1 cm long and 2.1 cm wide, the leaf stalk is 29 cm long and 0.6 cm in transverse diameter, and greenish white.