About Nymphaea mexicana Zucc.
Nymphaea mexicana Zucc. is a rhizomatous, aquatic, perennial herb. Its rhizomes are stoloniferous, reaching up to 30 cm in length and 4 cm in width, and bear leaf and root scars. Its stolons measure 15–100 cm long and 0.5–1 cm wide. The leaf blade can be ovate, suborbicular, or elliptic, and is 7–18(–27) cm long and 7–14(–18) cm wide. Its long, cylindrical petiole is glabrous. Flowers are floating or emersed, yellow, and 6–13 cm wide. Flower peduncles have four primary air canals. Flowers have four sepals and 12–30 yellow petals. The androecium is made up of 50 stamens, and the gynoecium is made up of seven to ten carpels. The fruit is spheroid or ovoid, and bears seeds that are 3–5 mm long and 3–5 mm wide, with hairlike papillae. Tuberiferous flowers or proliferating pseudanthia may be present. This species grows in water up to 4 m deep in lagoons, canals, swamps, and rivers, and can also grow in brackish water. It reproduces vegetatively via stolons. Structures that resemble bananas, made up of leaf buds and thick, starchy roots, form as part of this vegetative reproduction. Tuberiferous flowers or proliferating pseudanthia may also occur as part of this reproductive process.
