Species
+

Nymphaea alba L.

Běła wutka, Coçarate, European Water-lily, European White Waterlily

Climate known 45 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Nymphaea alba – commonly called the white water lily, European white water lily, or white nenuphar – is an aquatic flowering plant in the family Nymphaeaceae. It is native to North Africa, temperate Asia, Europe, and tropical Asia.

Text from Wikipedia, “Nymphaea alba”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Nymphaea

Nymphaea is a genus of hardy and tender aquatic plants in the family Nymphaeaceae. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution. Many species are cultivated as ornamental plants, and many cultivars have been bred. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Nymphaea”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Nymphaeaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +42
Wild records
614 in range· 128 open

At a glance

Warmest month
21°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
875mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 85 mm (CHELSA)
Light
4–35DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 875 mm a year, wettest October at 85 mm, driest April at 46 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -8.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Castalia alba (L.) Greene; Castalia alba Wood; Castalia alba var. depressa (Casp.) Vollm.; Castalia alba var. minor Murr; Castalia alba var. oviformis (Casp.) Vollm. and 45 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (638 mm of 875 mm) takes 8 months, June to January. Mean temperature moves 14.8 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 875 mm a year, wettest October at 85 mm, driest April at 46 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

875 mm a year at the habitat, 638 mm of it June to January. Wettest month October at 85 mm, driest April at 46 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 624 mm to 1103 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 2, the highest 90th-percentile month 38).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -8.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -8.8 °C, the absolute minimum -17.6 °C, about 62 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 28.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.4 °C in February (across the envelope cells -4.6 °C to 2.0 °C), warmest day 21.4 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -8.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 60 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 5 °C in Jan to 21 °C in Jul; mean night from 0 °C in Feb to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 875 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 550 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -17.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 28.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°frost28.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)-17.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 4–35RH 60–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 550 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C5 / 0–76 / 1–79 / 4–1013 / 9–1517 / 14–1919 / 17–2321 / 19–2521 / 19–2518 / 15–2114 / 10–159 / 5–106 / 1–7
Night °C1 / -5–20 / -5–23 / -2–45 / 2–69 / 6–1011 / 10–1414 / 12–1614 / 12–1611 / 9–138 / 5–104 / 1–61 / -3–3
Rain mm77 / 43–9059 / 37–7068 / 38–8046 / 39–7664 / 49–8372 / 58–9282 / 56–9779 / 58–10179 / 56–9985 / 56–11683 / 57–10681 / 54–100
DLI5 / 3–910 / 7–1517 / 15–2227 / 25–3033 / 32–3635 / 33–3834 / 32–3728 / 26–3219 / 17–2411 / 9–166 / 4–104 / 2–7
RH %68 / 65–6965 / 62–6763 / 60–6460 / 58–6260 / 57–6261 / 58–6361 / 58–6361 / 58–6363 / 59–6465 / 62–6767 / 64–6969 / 65–70

Each figure is the median across the 550 grid cells holding the 578 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 764:3716 (51.775, 5.825). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -17.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -8.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 550 distinct grid cells holding the 578 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 764:3716 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 52.00_5.625, lapse-corrected -5 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 10 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Baleares, Corse, France, Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Turkey, West Himalaya· introduced: Azores, China North-Central, China Southeast, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, New Zealand North, New Zealand South, Chile Central, Chile South
Extinct inSardegna, Sicilia· recorded as extinct by WCVP: history, not habitat; no records are tested against these regions
Kew's description“rhizomatous hydrogeophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker52.163, 4.486 · in the densest population, 283 records (46% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 614 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 128 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 895 km away. 19 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 36 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 614 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Nymphaea albaNymphaea albaNymphaea albaNymphaea albaNymphaea albaNymphaea albaNymphaea albaNymphaea alba

Photographs: (c) zebedeugalinha, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Grzegorz Grzejszczak, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Nymphaea alba, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Postglacial history of vegetation, human activity and lake-level changes at Jezioro Linówek in northeast Poland, based on multi-proxy data
Mariusz Gałka, Kazimierz Tobolski, Edyta Zawisza, Tomasz Goślar (2013) · Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
In vitro antibacterial and antitumor activities of some medicinal plant extracts, growing in Turkey
Arzu Birinci Yıldırım, Fatma Pehlivan Karakaş, Arzu Uçar Türker (2013) · Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine
Anxiolytic activity of Nymphaea alba Linn. in mice as experimental models of anxiety
BS Thippeswamy, Brijesh Kumar Mishra, Veeresh Prabhakar Veerapur, Gourav Gupta (2011) · Indian Journal of Pharmacology
Successional changes in the soft‐water macrophyte vegetation of (sub)atlantic, sandy, lowland regions during this century
G.H.P. Arts, G. van der Velde, Jan G. M. Roelofs, Chris van Swaay (1990) · Freshwater Biology
Discovery of new angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors from medicinal plants to treat hypertension using an in vitro assay
Niusha Sharifi, Effat Souri, Seyed Ali Ziai, Gholamreza Amin (2013) · DARU Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Can small water level fluctuations affect the biomass of Nymphaea alba in large lakes?
Jean‐Marc Paillisson, Loı̈c Marion (2006) · Aquatic Botany
Developmental morphology of ovules and seeds of Nymphaeales
Toshihiro Yamada, Ryoko Imaichi, Masahiro Kato (2001) · American Journal of Botany
Nelumbonaceae: Systematic position and species diversification revealed by the complete chloroplast genome
Jianhua Xue, Wenpan Dong, Tao Cheng, Shiliang Zhou (2012) · Journal of Systematics and Evolution

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Nymphaea 7 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 11 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.