Nymphaea nouchali "Sri Lanka"

This water lily has been imported from Sri Lanka, and it is sold in trade under the names Nymphaea spec. "red", N. spec. "Sri Lanka", "red and blue water lily" or "star lotus". Only a short time ago (October 19, 2011) it was identified as Nymphaea nouchali [1]. N. nouchali is widely spread in South and South-East Asia to Australia. It is the national flower of Sri Lanka, where it is called "Manel" [2; 3]. This species is very variable, there are populations with differently-coloured flowers, and hybrids of closely related water lily species used as ornamental plants (e.g. with N. caerulea and N. capensis) are known. In Sri Lanka, an introduced water lily with large blue-violet flowers ("Nil Manel") was thought to be N. nouchali, however, this error was cleared up a short time ago [2; 3].

This plant sprouts submersed leaves in the aquarium that resemble those of Nymphaea minuta from Madagascar. When cultivated under aquarium conditions, nicely-smelling flowers of around 7 cm in diameter may appear whose flower stalk lifts them above the waterline around 10 cm. They are open during the day. The petals are narrow and white-colored with a blue to red hue towards the petal rim [1].

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