As its name implies, water lettuce resembles a floating open head of lettuce. Water lettuce has very thick leaves. The leaves are light dull green, are hairy, and are ridged. There are no leaf stalks. Water lettuce roots are light-colored and feathery. Its flowers are inconspicuous. monocot, perennial free-floating except when stranded in the mud; singly or massed in large numbers; mother and daughter plants attached by short stolons thick soft leaves are formed in rosettes, with no leaf stems; leaves to 6 in. long; light green; with parallel ridges (veins), covered in short hairs; leaf margins wavy, top margins scalloped flowers inconspicuous (not observed in Florida till the 1980s though they had been flowering all along); nearly hidden in the center amongst the leaves; on small stalk, single female flower below and whorl of male flowers above roots hanging submersed beneath floating leaves; feathery, numerous fruit a green berry