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Nuphar lutea, the yellow water-lily, brandy-bottle, or spadderdock, is an aquatic plant of the family Nymphaeaceae, native to northern temperate and some subtropical regions of Europe, northwest Africa, and western Asia. This species was used as a food source and in medicinal practices from prehistoric times with potential research and medical applications going forward.: 30
Description
Vegetative characteristics
Nuphar lutea is an aquatic, rhizomatous, perennial herb with stout, branching, spongy, 3–8(–15) cm wide rhizomes. It has floating and sumberged leaves. The broadly elliptic to ovate, green, leathery floating leaf with an entire margin, a deep sinus and spreading basal lobes is 16–30 cm long, and 11.5–22.1 cm wide. The adaxial surface is glabrous, and the abaxial surface is glabrous or pubescent. The trigonous petiole is 3–10 mm wide. The very thin submerged leaf with undulate margins has short petioles.
Generative characteristics
The fragrant, solitary, yellow, subglobose, 30–65 mm wide, floating or emergent flowers have 4–10 mm wide, glabrous to pubescent peduncles. The 5(–6) yellow, broadly ovate to orbicular sepals with a rounded apex are 2–3 cm long. The 11–20 obovate inconspicuous petals with a rounded apex are 7.5–23 mm long. The androecium consists of numerous stamens with 4–7 mm long, yellow anthers. The sulcate, spheroidal pollen grains are 26–50 μm long. The gynoecium consists of 5-20 carpels. The stigmatic disk with an entire margin is 7–19 mm wide. The urceolate, green, 2.6–4.5 cm long, and 1.9–3.4 cm wide fruit, which is enclosed in persistent sepals, bears up to 400 ovoid, olive green, 3.5–5 mm long, and 3.5 mm wide seeds.
Cytology
The chromosome count is 2n = 34.
Taxonomy
It was first described by Carl Linnaeus as Nymphaea lutea L. in 1753. Later, it was transferred to genus Nuphar Sm. as Nuphar lutea (L.) Sm. by James Edward Smith in 1809. It is the type species of its genus. It is placed in the section Nuphar sect. Nuphar.
Species delimitation
Some botanists have treated Nuphar lutea as the sole species in Nuphar, including all the other species in it as subspecies and giving the species a holarctic range, but the genus is now more usually divided into eight species (see Nuphar for details).
Etymology
The specific epithet lutea, from the Latin luteus, means yellow.
Ecology
Habitat
Habitat for Nuphar lutea ranges widely from moving to stagnant waters of "shallow lakes, ponds, swamps, river and stream margins, canals, ditches, and tidal reaches of freshwater streams"; alkaline to acidic waters; and sea level to mountainous lakes up to 10,000 feet in altitude.: 24 The species is less tolerant of water pollution than water-lilies in the genus Nymphaea. This aquatic plant grows in shallow water and wetlands, with its roots in the sediment and its leaves floating on the water surface; it can grow in water up to 5 metres deep. It is usually found in shallower water than the white water lily, and often in beaver ponds. Since the flooded soils are deficient in oxygen, aerenchyma in the leaves and rhizome transport oxygen from the atmosphere to the rhizome roots. Often there is mass flow from the young leaves into the rhizome, and out through the older leaves. This "ventilation mechanism" has become the subject of research because of this species' substantial benefit to the surrounding ecosystem by "exhaling" methane gas from lake sediments.
Herbivory
Nuphar lutea plant colonies in turn are affected by organisms that graze on its leaves, gnaw on stems, and eat its roots, including turtles, birds, deer, moose, porcupines, and more. The rhizomes are often consumed by muskrats.: 27–29 The waterlily leaf beetle, Galerucella nymphaeae, spends its entire life cycle around various Nuphar species, exposing leaf tissue to microbial attack and loss of floating ability.
With other species in the Nymphaeales order, Nuphar lutea provides habitat for fish and a wide range of aquatic invertebrates, insects, snails, birds, turtles, crayfish, moose, deer, muskrats, porcupine, and beaver in shallow waters along lake, pond, and stream margins across the multiple continents where it is found.
Distribution and habitat
Nuphar lutea is native to the region spanning from Europe to Siberia, Xinjiang, China, and North Algeria. It is extinct in Sicily, Italy. It has been introduced to Bangladesh, New Zealand, and the Russian region Primorye.
Conservation status
The IUCN conservation status is Least Concern (LC).
Use
Horticulture
It is cultivated as an ornamental plant.
Food
Nuphar lutea is used as food.
Symbolism
Stylized red leaves of the yellow water lily, known as seeblatts or pompeblêden are used as a symbol of Frisia. The flag of the Dutch province of Friesland features seven pompeblêden.
Stone masons carved forms of the flowers on the roof bosses of Bristol Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, these are thought to encourage celibacy.
References
External links
- The International Waterlily & Water Gardening Society, and Nuphar records