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Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea
Also called Egyptian blue lily, Sacred blue lily, Blue Lotus, Blue Water Lily, Cape Blue Water Lily, Cape Waterlily, Egyptian Blue Lotus
A blue-flowered water lily from freshwater lakes, pools and rivers in eastern and southern Africa, grown widely as an ornamental pond plant. It needs still or slow water with its roots in mud and plenty of sun to flower well.
Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea, or simply Nymphaea caerulea, also known as blue lotus or blue water lily among many other names, is a water lily in the genus Nymphaea, a botanical variety of Nymphaea nouchali.
It is an aquatic plant of freshwater lakes, pools and rivers, naturally found throughout most of the eastern half of Africa, as well as parts of southern Arabia, but has also been spread to other regions as an ornamental plant. It can tolerate the roots being in anoxic mud in nutritionally poor conditions, and can become a dominant plant in deeper water in such habitats. The underwater rhizomes are edible.
The native distribution covers North Africa along the Nile and south throughout central, East and Southern Africa. It is common in this range. The conservation status has not been evaluated by the IUCN, but it is considered a species of 'least concern' by the South African National Biodiversity Institute in their Red List of South African Plants.
The rootstock of the blue water lily was collected and eaten in western South Africa around 1800, either raw or in curries, in particular by the Cape Malays and farming communities in the Cape, although this practice has now died out.
White Water-lily · Dotleaf waterlily · Nymphaea nouchali var. zanzibariensis · Giant waterlily · Yellow waterlily · Blue Lotus · American white waterlily · Hairy Water Lily · Pygmy Rwandan waterlily · Waterlily
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea 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.
