Water Lily (Nymphaeaceae)
NATIVE RANGE:
Tropical Climates
DESCRIPTION:
Flowering plants that live in still bodies of water, like lakes, with their rhizome roots buried in the mud below the water and their leaves floating on the surface. Their flowers range in color by species, from white, to pink, red, yellow, blue, and purple.
EVOLUTION:
Water lilies were among the first plants to make the evolutionary leap to flowers. Flowering plants now make up about 90% of the plants we have in the world today, but scientists have yet to pinpoint exactly how or when plants made the leap to developing flowers. What science does know however, is that water lilies were among the first to do so. Three ancient groups of plants have diverged and evolved into every flowering tree and plant that exists in the world today.
(Amborellales, Nymphaeales, and Austrobaileyales are the three orders that comprise basal angiosperms.)
