I can not get frog bite because of state laws.
I have an anecdote about this. Some 12 years ago on another forum, I posted some information on what I though was
Limnobium laeviatum because it had that name in the store. It happened to flower, so I posted photos of the flowers with the article. The site owner/admin, who lived in the US, sent me an email he had received from someone in the US Department of Agriculture, with a request that since I knew about these plants would I respond. The Agricultural official pointed out that this plant was an invasive species and illegal in some states. I researched it and discovered the plant I had been sold was in fact not the tropical species but a European species,
Hydrocharis morsus-ranae, easily identified by the flower.
There are two other plants very similar in appearance (leaf form) that may be confused with
Limnobium laevigatum.
L. spongia is a native North American Frogbit, and
Hydrocharis morsus-ranae is a European/Asian plant sometimes referred to as Common or European Frogbit. This latter is a very invasive plant that was intentionally introduced into North America via Ottawa, Canada in 1932. It has since spread quickly and by 2003 was known to occur throughout much of southeastern Ontario, southern Quebec, northern New York and Vermont and eastern Michigan. "Frogbit" is classified in several states including California and Washington as a noxious weed. It is likely that some aquarium plants are in fact not
L. laevigatum but one of the other two, and the flowers must be seen to be certain unless you do a phylogenetic analysis.
