1176

 Nymphaea rubra Roxb.ex Salisb.

Synonyms	:	Castalia rubra (Roxb. ex Andrews) Tratt.
Family	:	Nymphaceae
Local Name	:	Red Water Lily
Flowering and fruiting period	:	All YEAR
Distribution	:	Asia: Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos,
Habitat	:	Lakes and ponds of the plains
Uses	:	Rhizomes are used as a cure for dyspepsia and dysentery. People of Assam use the roots for vomiting. Apply the dried roots powder in area with piles
Key Botanical Characters: Aquatic perennial herbs, maroon coloured, laticiferous, rooted. Rhizomes short, ovoid, stoloniferous. Leaves suborbicular, peltate to broadly ovate, about 12-30 x 9-26 cm across, base deeply hastate, margin shortly sinuate dentate and wavy, apex obtuse to retuse, lowest pair of veins straight and divergently produced and basal lobes, basal lobes slightly unequal, usually floating or submerged, membranous when young and coriaceous, dark red when young, reddish maroon, later olive green glabrous when mature on both sides, densely pubescent, prominently veined when mature beneath, submerged leaves smaller, cordate or sagittate, long petiolate. Flowers bisexual, usually solitary and floating, crimson red or dark red, about 8-16 cm across, with long peduncles, receptacle cylindrical, sepals 4, free, oblong-lanceolate, apex subacute or blunt, brownish green outside, about 2.5-8 x 1.5 x 1-3.5 cm across, petals about 10-25, oblong-lanceolate, base attenuate, apex subacute, white, outer ones about 2-7 x 1-2.8 cm across. Stamens numerous, filaments of the inner stamens with purplish band outside, lanceolate, longer than anthers, anthers partially sunken, carpels completely united, ovary superior, about 19-27 loculate, stigma flat with a hemispheric central projection, red and stigma receptive only during the first day stigmatic appendages oblong, inflexed, about 0.5-1 cm long. Fruit berry globose, about 2.5-4 cm across. Seeds numerous, ellipsoid or globular, smooth, spongy aril make the seedes float, about 1.5 x 1 mm.