Fastest self-replicating plant growth

The fastest self-replicating plant growth is that of Wolffia microscopica, a minute free-floating species of freshwater aquatic duckweed endemic to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It can reproduce asexually, self-replicating via tiny leaf-like mother fronds. Each bears at its tip a conical cavity that gives rise to detachable daughter fronds (clones) by a process known as "budding". The relative growth rate (RGR) of this species via budding is so fast that one specimen (named "Clone 2005") exhibited a biomass doubling time of 29.3 hours under optimal conditions. The results were published in the journal Acta Physiologiae Plantarum in October 2015.

In addition to self-replication, W. microscopica also reproduces sexually, but whereas generative reproduction is very insignificant in other Wolffia duckweeds, where budding dominates, in this species it has been shown uniquely to be as significant to its survival as budding. Generative reproduction, involving the production of tiny yellow flowers on the dorsal surface of both its mother and daughter fronds at the same time, is induced by lower temperature (22°C) and short-day conditions (12-hour light period), as well as by the introduction of higher levels of iron.

Duckweed, aka watermeal, are the smallest flowering plants (angiosperms) in the world with an individual plant measuring less than 1 mm long and 0.3 mm wide. From minuscule flowers, they also bear the smallest fruit, which take up a large proportion of the parent plant body. In W. augusta, the fruit is only 0.25 mm long (1/100th of an inch) and weighs about 70 micrograms (1/400,000 of an ounce).