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Nymphaea gigantea
Also called Giant Water Lily, White Pond Lily, Blue Waterlily
Nymphaea gigantea is a rhizomatous aquatic perennial waterlily native to northern and eastern Australia, with large floating leaves and big flowers that open white-lilac to blue. It needs still, deep water with mud for its rhizome to root in, and is widely grown in ponds in warm climates.
Nymphaea gigantea, commonly known as the giant waterlily or blue waterlily, is a perennial, herbaceous plant in the family Nymphaeaceae which is native to parts of northern and eastern Australia, and possibly New Guinea, and has been widely cultivated elsewhere. It is an aquatic plant whose natural habitat is permanent and semi-permanent still water bodies.
The species was brought to England by Frederick Strange, where it received notices in newspapers and began to be cultivated by nurseries.
The range of the giant waterlily in Australia is from northeastern New South Wales, through eastern and northern Queensland, northern parts of the Northern Territory, and the far northeast of Western Australia. Some non-authoritative sources claim it is also native to New Guinea.
Various parts of Nymphaea gigantea are edible and the plant was an important staple food for indigenous Australians across the northern parts of Australia. The golfball-sized tubers were collected from the muddy bottoms of water bodies by indigenous women and roasted before eating. The flower buds and peeled stalks were eaten raw, and the seeds could either be eaten on their own after roasting the whole fruit, or were pounded to make a flour for damper.
White Water-lily · Dotleaf waterlily · Nymphaea nouchali var. zanzibariensis · Yellow waterlily · Egyptian lotus · Blue Lotus · American white waterlily · Hairy Water Lily · Pygmy Rwandan waterlily · Waterlily
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Nymphaea gigantea by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
