Flowers of some wetland plants: Elegance personified

If the rose is a terrestrial plant that has acquired global fame owing to its beautiful flower, the lotus is an aquatic plant that is well-known for its elegant flower.    

Lotus, that is known as ‘Kamal’ in several local languages of India, is a floating-leaved aquatic plant with attractive flowers and large roundish leaves. In fact, there is no need to introduce it as it is very well-known for its aesthetic, food and religious/spiritual values. This plant enhances the beauty of a wetland with its large, graceful pink (or sometimes white) flowers that remain above water. Some wetlands of central Gujarat (Ahmedabad, Kheda, Anand, Vadodara districts) and south Gujarat (Valsad and Navsari districts) have impressive growth of lotus plants.

Besides lotus, our village ponds, lakes and reservoirs are decorated with the presence of several other floating leaved aquatic plants that have charming flowers. One of them is water lily. In Gujarat, there are a couple of species of water lily with attractive flowers. 

A species of water lily has red or white flowers and largish, round floating leaves that have wavy toothed margin). It is well-known as “Poynu” in Gujarati and botanists call it Nymphaea pubescence. This species can be seen abundantly at many reservoir and village ponds of Gujarat and their flowers form red or white carpet on the water surface. In the famous Nal Sarovar (a Ramsar Site in Gujarat), one may come across another species of water lily that is famous as “Neelkamal” or “Neelofer”. Its flowers, though whitish, often have very visible purplish blue tinge and that’s why the phrase “neel (=blue) is used in its native name. Botanists call it Nymphaea stellata. 

“Water Snowflake” and “Crested Floating Hearts” are other two aquatic plants in our wetlands. Though their leaves and white flowers are much smaller as compared to those of water lilies, they certainly add to the beauty of open water zones of several irrigation reservoirs of Gujarat.

“Water hyasinth” has got a bad reputation as a weed due to its aggressive spread in waterbodies. Keeping aside its “bad habit” of choking wetlands, I would like to draw your attention to the flowers of this aquatic plant. Yes, they look beautiful due to their purple colour. The carpet of such flowers on the water surface of a wetland is not as unpleasant as “weedy” habit of this free-floating aquatic plant.

Wetlands are treasure troves of aesthetically appealing aspects. Indeed, some aquatic plants are one of them owing to their stunning flowers. Of course, if unregulated, these plants acquire “weed” status and harm the habitat value of wetlands. We know that anything in access is bad!

The author is the founding editor of e-Periodical Jalaplavit, senior scientist and PhD scholar from West Virginia University and can be reached at ketantatu1@gmail.com.