ABSTRACT
Eichhornia crassipes an attractive, floating waterweed with a fibrous root system and dark green
rounded leaves and light purple flowers reproduces sexually through the production of vast quantities of
seeds. The plant grows so quickly that the surface covered by the mats doubles every 4-5 days
producing 33,000 tons fresh weight per hectare annually. As one of the most productive plants on earth,
a mat of medium sized plants contains 2 million plants with each individual plant producing at least 140
million others. This investigation attempts to find out the effects of sexual reproduction on the
proliferation of Eichhornia crassipes in Lake Geriyo Adamawa Nigeria. Pollen formation and
germinability of Eichhornia crassipes being one of the fastest growing plant revealed that 100% of its
pollens harvested from the Lake were morphologically deformed. Out of the 1500 pollens scored, 25
(1.67%) showed very slow pollen tube development within 12 hrs. The pollen protoplast in both
germinated and non-germinating grains showed signs of collapsing cytoplasm and at the end of the 24
hrs, the protoplasts of 75% of those that germinated and 50% of those that did not germinate
disintegrated. Thirty five percent (35%) of the pollen grains showed knobby protuberances only on the
grain surface which did not develop further into a pollen tube. Eichhornia crassipes which was found to
be sexually sterile revealed the formation of phragmoplast at anaphase a rare occurrence and that sexual
reproduction has no effect on the proliferation of Eichhornia crassipes in Lake Geriyo Adamawa
Nigeria, therefore the need for further research to find out the reasons for the rapid prolific reproduction
of the plant in order to control it.
Keywords: Pollen formation, Pollen germinability, Sexual reproduction and Proliferation.