Description
N. nouchali is a day-blooming nonviviparous plant with submerged roots and stems. Part of the leaves are submerged, while others rise slightly above the surface. The leaves are round and green on top; they usually have a darker underside. The floating leaves have undulating edges that give them a crenellated appearance. Their size is about 20–23 cm and their spread is 0.9 to 1.8 m.
This water lily has a beautiful flower which is usually violet blue in color with reddish edges. Some varieties have white, purple, mauve, or fuchsia-colored flowers, hence its name red and blue water lily. The flower has four or five sepals and 13-15 petals that have an angular appearance, making the flower look star-shaped from above. The cup-like calyx has a diameter of 11–14 cm.
Features
It has a fleshy and horizontal rhizome, which is rooted at the bottom of the water mirror in which it lives. The leaves float, after long petioles; They are large, cordiform and well lobed, with leathery texture and light green color. The flowers are solitary, hermaphroditic, with a long peduncle and blue and red and yellow coloration; The calyx is composed of four sepals, and the corolla of up to fifty thick petals. The stamens are numerous, provided with yellow anthers. Pollination can be autogamous or entomógama. The fruit, an achene, disseminates the seeds by hydrochloric.
Appearance and leaf
The star water lily is a perennial herbaceous plant. This aquatic plant forms upright, unbranched rhizomes as survival organs.
The leaves are divided into petiole and leaf blade. The simple, herbaceous leaf blade is usually 7 to 15 in diameter, rarely up to 45 cm elliptical-circular to circular, a few millimeters from the heart-shaped base of the blade (peltat). The basal lobes are parallel to spread out. The leaf margins are almost smooth to deep notched. The underside of the leaf is bare.
Flower, fruit and seeds
The flowering period in China ranges from July to December. On a long flower stem, the flowers are roughly above the water surface. The hermaphrodite flowers are screw-shaped with a diameter of 3 to 15 cm and have a double inflorescence. The durable, free sepals are lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate with a length of 2.5 to 8 cm and the nerves are somewhat recognizable. The 10 to 30 free petals are linear-oblong to lanceolate with a length of 4.5 to 5 cm. The colors of the petals range from purple-tinted white to blue to purple. The transition from petals to stamens is gradual. There are many stamensavailable. The stamens of the inner stamens are more or less wide than the anthers. The many fruit leaves are only partially overgrown with each other and the walls between the walls of the fruit storage chambers are therefore double. The appendages of the fruit leaves are triangular-conical. There are rarely 8 to, mostly 10 to 30 scar rays.
The fruit is spherical with a diameter of 1.5 to 4.5 cm. The spherical seeds with a diameter of 0.5 to 1.3 mm have longitudinal rows with hairs (trichomes).
Chromosome number
The chromosome number is 2n = 28, 56, 84.
Distribution and habitat
This aquatic plant is native in a broad region from Afghanistan, the Indian subcontinent, to Taiwan, southeast Asia, and Australia. It has been long valued as a garden flower in Thailand and Myanmar to decorate ponds and gardens. In its natural state, N. nouchali is found in static or slow-flowing aquatic habitats of low to moderate depth.
Symbolism
It was also the National flower of the former defunct Hyderabad State. N. nouchali is the national flower of Bangladesh. A pale blue-flowered N. nouchali is the national flower of Sri Lanka, where it is known as nil mānel or nil mahanel (නිල් මානෙල්).
In Sri Lanka, this plant usually grows in buffalo ponds and natural wetlands. Its beautiful aquatic flower has been mentioned in Sanskrit, Pali, and Sinhala literary works since ancient times under the names kuvalaya, indhīwara, niluppala, nilothpala, and nilupul as a symbol of virtue, discipline, and purity. Buddhist lore in Sri Lanka claims that this flower was one of the 108 auspicious signs found on Prince Siddhartha's footprint. It is said that when Buddha died, lotus flowers blossomed everywhere he had walked in his lifetime.
Claire Waight Keller included the plant to represent Sri Lanka in Meghan Markle's wedding veil, which included the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country.
N. nouchali might have been one of the plants eaten by the Lotophagi of Homer's Odyssey.
Uses
N. nouchali is used as an ornamental plant because of its spectacular flowers, and is most commonly used for the traditional and cultural festivals in Sri Lanka. It is also popular as an aquarium plant under the name "dwarf lily" or "dwarf red lily". Sometimes, it is grown for its flowers, while other aquarists prefer to trim the lily pads, and just have the underwater foliage.
N. nouchali is considered a medicinal plant in Indian Ayurvedic medicine under the name ambal; it was mainly used to treat indigestion.
Like all water lilies or lotuses, its tubers and rhizomes can be used as food items; they are eaten usually boiled or roasted. In the case of N. nouchali, its tender leaves and flower peduncles are also valued as food.
The dried plant is collected from ponds, tanks, and marshes during the dry season and used in India as animal forage.
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