Abstract

Duckweeds (family: Lemnaceae) are increasingly gaining interest because of their potential as new aquaculture crop plants. In the present era of high through-put research in this area, duckweed taxonomy has to be emphasized in order to support and strengthen scientific communication and commercial application. Since the publication of the fundamental monograph on Lemnaceae by E. Landolt in 1986, a number of changes have taken place in terms of their taxonomic position and nomenclature, which we summarize in the present review. We report here about the systematic position of this plant family and the changes in its organization at the level of subfamilies and genera. Three additional species were identified; one new genus and subsequently one of the species were re-defined after the publication of key of determination in 1986. At present Lemnaceae comprises of 37 species grouped into five genera. We envisage that this review will serve as a compilation of all these recent revisions, describing the state of art of duckweed systematics and more so will help the newcomers in the field of duckweeds to comprehend the various terms used in the past.

Key words: Aquaculture; Duckweed; Lemnaceae; Taxonomy; crop plant