Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea (Savigny) Verdc.

Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea is a clump-forming, perennial, spongy, black, tuberous rhizomes anchored in the pond mud by spreading roots. It does not have true stems. Instead, the leaves are on long petioles that arise directly from the rhizome. The leaves are large and flat, rounded or oval, up to 40 cm in diameter, with notched margins, and cleft almost to the center where the petiole is attached. One plant can spread over an area of about 1 m. The large elegant blue flowers are held well above the water at the tip of a sturdy green stalk and appear almost continuously from spring until the end of summer. They are star-like, with four sepals, green on the outside, white to blue on the inside, and many blue petals. In the center of the flower are numerous blue-tipped, bright golden yellow stamens.

Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea is partial to fully dormant in winter, losing all its leaves in the colder interior parts of South Africa but often retaining a few leaves in milder coastal areas. New leaf growth begins in early summer and the plants’ flowers in profusion from November to March.

Native to: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cape Provinces, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Oman, Palestine, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia, Zaïre, Zimbabwe.