The Pantanal, being a wetland, is a favorable environment for the development of many aquatic plants. This list of aquatic macrophytes of the Pantanal was made based on field collections, deposited at Herbarium CPAP (EMBRAPA), COR (Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul), CH (Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso) and K (Kew), to support regional floristic surveys. Until present, 242 species were listed, distributed within 106 genera and 54 families. The most numerous families were Poaceae (22 species) Cyperaceae(17), Leguminosae and Scrophulariaceae(14), Alismataceae and Onagraceae(13), Pontederiaceae (11), Lentibulariaceae(10), Characeae(9), Lemnaceae, Malvaceae andNymphaeaceae(8). The majority of other families has one or two species each. The life form spectrum includes 39% emergent plants, 28% amphibious, 11,5% rooted floating, 8% free floating, 8% rooted submerged, 3,8% free submerged and 1,7% epiphytes. The most important genera in number of species are Nymphaea, Utricularia, Echinodorus, Ludwigia, Polygonum, Aeschynomene, Cyperus, Eleocharis and Bacopa.
aquatic plants; hydrophytes; wetland; flora; Pantanal