Any experts or knowledgeable folk on water lilies on the Texas forum? Last year I bought two Nympheas from Lowe's (I think). A couple of weeks ago when my cattle decided to try and go to the town west of me, I was trudging back to my place across the neighbors place and walked by their stock pond. The water is low all around and the water lilies were waking up. I think they are very late this year to start growing.

In short, I waded out and pulled up a long runner that had 3 knots/rhizomes with roots all connected by a very fibrous stem. I brought it home and found a container with no holes and filled with my heavy red clay and planted one of the rhizomes and cut off the bad part of the fibrous stem and eliminated one rhizome. At the time, I could see a leaf emerging from the rhizome I put in the clay. The other one had growth, but I thought it might be a bloom. I put the whole container in one of cattle tubs and filled it with water with the idea that when I get the big stock trough at the barn set up I'd relocate to that larger trough. I hate dead water spaces, what can I say.

In short, though, the growth so far is very, very different that the Nymphea growth. I was expecting a clump of leaves from the planted rhizome, but what it's doing is making a long runner making more rhizomes which then grow roots and put out a leaf. These are growing well and what I thought might be a bloom is in fact a leaf. So far, each knot has only produced one leaf. Nothing resembling a cluster of growth yet like the Nympheas.

I don't want to make a huge mistake by cultivating a plant that might be carried into my own pond. It's small and gets enough duckweed that it looks like you can walk on it as it is. I think I'm safe putting it in the trough where I can just reach in and cut off excessive growth if needed, but the manner in which it's growing in a 3' diameter tub makes me wonder. I'm just not familiar enough with water plants to be sure.

I settled on the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center as showing the one I most likely collected. I used to have the property leased for a few years and if I'm remembering correctly, the blooms were yellow. But in truth, since I can't walk on water, I've never actually looked at a bloom closely. Memory says they are large and hold themselves above the water a bit. Look really nice standing on the bank and looking at the floating leaves with blooms above, but no bloom detail.

Interesting that nearly everything I could find via Google was giving the name Nuphar lutea, but that is listed as a synonym here on NGA. I thought when I take it out of the tub to place in the stock trough, I'd take a photo of the running growth structure and put it in the database if it's a safe identification for Nuphar. It might need to be a generic Nuphar entry for that. I couldn't find a Google photo showing the plant structure. Lots of leaves, blooms and pods, but not the runners making the chain of growth I'm seeing.

Any ideas?

This is Nuphar lutea.

@Horntoad
Thanks Jay. I can't tell mine is the same. I'll try to take some photos to post. I did notice today that the 3 leaves are solid circles. No split. But each of the leaves I see are a single leaf from one of those knots. So far there are no secondary leaves from the nodes. The last node is diving deep toward the bottom today, but no leaf yet.

Your description, large yellow flower held above the water, and round leaf with no split, make me think American Lotus, Nelumbo lutea. I've seen them growing at the Wildlife Management Area near here.
American Lotus (Nelumbo lutea)

You may be correct. Google photos make me think the blooms match my memory closer than those shown for Nuphar. I'll try to remember to get some photos of the leaves and plant structure to post here. Thanks.

@Horntoad
Jay, I took some photos this afternoon. Maybe they will help.

This is how I have it currently. It's in a good sized container filled with heavy red clay and the smallest leaf is the joint that is planted in the clay. The container with clay is submerged in a plastic cattle tub. The yellow cattle tub is about the size of a big round galvanized wash tub.


Here I just lifted it out of the cattle tub and drained some surface water off. That dark leaf stem leads to the joint in the clay, anchoring it. The wiggle tails like dirty water, so I need to water other plants with it.


I tried to get a photo of the growth. It's essentially running like Bermuda grass. Runs, makes a joint with roots and a single leaf; then another joint and another. At the end you can see the small new leaf already with roots but also already sending out a new growing point.


Obviously I don't understand what it's going to do. Just make one long rope indefinitely? Will a joint eventually put out more leaves and a bloom I have visions of a 1/8 mile long runner circling around and around in the stock trough and still growing. Sure isn't growing like the Nympheas. Can you tell from the photos if it's American Lotus (Nelumbo lutea) from these photos. To me, it doesn't look like the photos you gave of Nuphar lutea.

I've never seen Lotus below water, but those leaves definently look like Lotus.

Thanks Jay.

I think it's likely you are correct and it is Lotus. I found this webpage that has photos of the underwater growth. Looks a lot more hefty than mine, but I think mine are young rhizomes. Better still, the page gives instructions on how to grow it a pond or water feature and keep it in bounds and under control. I think I'll go ahead and try it this year. http://www.louistheplantgeek.c...

Thanks again. I just didn't turn it up on my earlier searches, but Lotus does match my memory better than the blooms for the Nuphea did. I guess if it manages to bloom, it might nail down the answer.

The growth of the roots shown in that link looks pretty close except for the size. If you do get blooms, I would love some of the seeds.

Here's a bunch of photos. 1st is where I've now set up a container in the stock trough at the barn. We'll see how it goes . I can only hope it's not a mistake. I put the 'runner' in a rubber cattle pan in heavy red clay; the trough, which is in 8' diameter. That leaf with straigh sides has the edges curling up above the water level. It'll probably be floating today.



@Horntoad Here are photos of a neighbors stock pond. Not the one I collected mine from, but I'm pretty sure they are the same plant. The dozer is parked by this pond. They are going to fill it in. It's dangerous for the cattle and they are opting to fill it instead of trying to clean out the years of accumulated muck. For comparison to the lotus you see.



Jay, while I was there I picked up some dried pods from last year. They still have a few seeds in them if you want to try them.

Yep, that's the same as what I see here, and that's definitely a lotus seed pod. I would love to get some seeds.

Horntoad said:Yep, that's the same as what I see here, and that's definitely a lotus seed pod. I would love to get some seeds.

Treemail me your addy and I'll send what I picked up. No guarantees, though, since they are probably from last year. If mine manages to bloom this summer, I'll send you fresher ones. Based on my observation of these, it's early in the season yet for them, so the seeds may be good. If I remember and get a chance, I may wander over to the other neighbors pond later this year and see what I can find.