Nymphaeaceae
Basal angiosperm family of aquatic rhizomatous herbs.
Nymphaeaceae, the water lily family, consists of flowering, aquatic herbs that grow from rhizomes in both temperate and tropical regions worldwide. It includes five genera and roughly 70 species. These plants root in the soil beneath bodies of water, sending up leaves and flowers that float on the surface or rise above it. Leaf shapes vary: oval and heart-shaped in *Barclaya*; round with a radial notch in *Nymphaea* and *Nuphar*; and fully circular in *Victoria* and *Euryale*.
This family has been heavily studied because its large flowers, with many unspecialized parts, were once thought to resemble the earliest flowering plants. Genetic research later confirmed water lilies as basal angiosperms. However, detailed analysis of floral structure, molecular traits, and comparisons with their sister group, Cabombaceae, shows that living water lilies with the most floral parts are actually more derived than those with fewer parts. Genera with many floral parts—*Nuphar*, *Nymphaea*, and *Victoria*—are pollinated by beetles, while those with fewer parts rely on flies, bees, self-pollination, or wind. So, the large number of unspecialized floral organs in Nymphaeaceae is not an ancestral trait for the group.
**Vegetative characteristics:** These plants are annual or perennial, aquatic, and rhizomatous. Their stems have scattered vascular bundles, and they often produce latex. Distinctive, star-shaped sclereids project into air canals. Simple hairs usually secrete mucilage. Leaves are alternate, spiral, opposite, or occasionally whorled; simple; peltate or nearly so; with margins that are entire, toothed, or dissected; on short or long petioles. Blades may be submerged, floating, or emergent, with palmate to pinnate venation. Stipules may be present or absent.
**Generative characteristics:** Flowers are solitary, bisexual, and radial, on long pedicels, usually floating or raised above the water. The receptacle has girdling vascular bundles. Some species are protogynous and mainly cross-pollinated, but because male and female stages overlap on the second day of flowering, and the plants are self-compatible, self-fertilization can occur. Female and male parts are often active at different times to encourage cross-pollination, though this is just one of several reproductive strategies. Sepals number 4–12, are distinct to fused, overlapping, and often petal-like.
Quick Facts
- Taxon
- Nymphaeaceae
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
The Nymphaeaceae are annual or perennial, aquatic, rhizomatous herbs with scattered vascular bundles in the stems and frequent presence of latex. Leaves are alternate and spiral, simple, peltate or nearly so, with blade submerged, floating or emergent. Flowers are solitary, bisexual, radial, with a long pedicel, usually floating or raised above the water surface. Some species are protogynous and primarily cross-pollinated, but self-fertilization is possible due to overlapping male and female stages. The fruit is an aggregate of nuts, a berry, or an irregularly dehiscent fleshy spongy capsule.
Modern genetic analyses by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group have confirmed its basal position among flowering plants. The family is placed in the order Nymphaeales, the second diverging group of angiosperms after Amborella in the APG IV system. The genus Barclaya is sometimes given rank as its own family, Barclayaceae, but molecular phylogenetic work includes it in Nymphaeaceae. The genus Ondinea has recently been shown to be a morphologically aberrant species of Nymphaea. The sacred lotus was once thought to be a water lily but is now recognized as a highly modified eudicot in Nelumbonaceae.
Reader's Guide
Water lilies are notable for their evolutionary significance as basal angiosperms, with floral morphology that was initially thought to represent the earliest flowering plants. However, analyses indicate that genera with more floral parts (Nuphar, Nymphaea, Victoria) have a beetle pollination syndrome and are more derived than genera with fewer floral parts. The family has been investigated systematically for decades due to this floral morphology. Several fossil species are known, including Cretaceous representatives of Nymphaea and fossil genera such as Jaguariba, Allenbya, Notonuphar, Nuphaea, Susiea, and Barclayopsis. The Mexican waterlily, native to the Gulf Coast of North America, has become invasive in some areas such as California's San Joaquin Valley, where it can infest slow-moving bodies of water and is difficult to eradicate. The water lily is the national flower of Bangladesh, Iran, and Sri Lanka, and appears in the Emblem of Bangladesh. It was depicted by the French artist Claude Monet in a series of paintings. In Maya civilization, water lilies were a visual sign of water cleanliness, and their iconography was used on stelae, monumental architecture, murals, and in hieroglyphic writing. There is evidence that water lilies were used as cultural entheogenic, possibly due to opiate alkaloids in the family.
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