Nymphaea elegans Hook.

Tropical royalblue waterlily, blue water-lily, tropical royalblue waterlily

Climate known 51 photographs

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 elegans, also known as the tropical royalblue waterlily, is a species of aquatic plants in the family Nymphaeaceae. It is native to the United States, Mexico, and the Bahamas. It has been introduced to Colombia. Additionally, it has been reported to occur in Argentina.

Text from Wikipedia, “Nymphaea elegans”, 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

Hook.

Native to

Texas, Florida, Louisiana +7

Wild records

394 in range· 157 open

At a glance

Warmest month

32°C

Jul, mean day; nights 25 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1009mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Aug 172 mm (CHELSA)

Light

22–42DLI

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: a summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1009 mm a year, wettest August at 172 mm, driest January at 35 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12.8 °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 elegans (Hook.) Greene; Leuconymphaea elegans (Hook.) Kuntze; Nymphaea mexicana A.Gray.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern).

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

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (773 mm of 1009 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 26.9 °C against a yearly mean of 23.5 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April.

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 1009 mm a year, wettest August at 172 mm, driest January at 35 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1009 mm a year at the habitat, 773 mm of it May to October. Wettest month August at 172 mm, driest January at 35 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 667 mm to 1499 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: 22 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 42 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 18, the highest 90th-percentile month 50).

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 12.8 °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 12.8 °C, the absolute minimum 6.8 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 13.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells 9.3 °C to 18.6 °C), warmest day 31.5 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12.8 °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: 59 to 63% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 231 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	23 / 17–27	24 / 18–28	26 / 21–30	28 / 24–32	30 / 27–34	31 / 29–34	32 / 30–35	31 / 30–35	30 / 29–32	29 / 26–31	26 / 22–30	24 / 18–28
Night °C	13 / 9–19	15 / 11–19	16 / 13–19	19 / 17–21	22 / 20–24	25 / 23–26	25 / 23–26	25 / 23–26	24 / 22–26	21 / 19–25	18 / 15–22	15 / 11–20
Rain mm	35 / 24–101	41 / 10–76	36 / 3–80	42 / 1–76	74 / 1–113	109 / 27–259	158 / 62–266	172 / 54–265	170 / 111–279	90 / 66–136	45 / 16–113	37 / 16–85
DLI	24 / 19–30	29 / 23–36	35 / 30–43	41 / 36–48	42 / 39–50	41 / 38–45	40 / 35–43	37 / 34–41	33 / 31–35	29 / 27–34	24 / 21–31	22 / 18–28
RH %	59 / 57–64	59 / 56–63	59 / 54–63	59 / 53–64	60 / 54–65	62 / 56–64	62 / 58–65	63 / 58–66	63 / 59–68	60 / 57–66	59 / 56–64	59 / 56–64

Each figure is the median across the 231 grid cells holding the 359 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 1307:1451 (24.625, -107.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 6.8 °C, 1st-percentile night 12.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.5 °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 231 distinct grid cells holding the 359 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1307:1451 (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 24.50_-107.500, lapse-corrected -16 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 19 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.

NativeTexas, Florida, Louisiana, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Bahamas· introduced: Colombia

Kew's description“tuberous hydrogeophyte” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker27.311, -97.722 · in the densest population, 198 records (50% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 394 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 157 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 851 km away. 11 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 35 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 inside the densest 4° block of the 394 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Clifton Ladd, C.W.B., some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Francisco Farriols Sarabia, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Brand R, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (4); (c) Juan Chavez, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist 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 elegans, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Notes on the floral biology of Nymphaea elegans (nymphaeaceae) in Texas

Edward L. Schneider (1982) · Aquatic Botany

Oxygen uptake from aquatic macrophyte decomposition from Piraju Reservoir (Piraju, SP, Brazil)

Irineu Bianchini, MB. Cunha-Santino, RS. Panhota (2011) · Brazilian Journal of Biology

Evaluation of the faster initial decomposition of tropical floating leaves of Nymphaea elegans Hook

Isao Ikusima, José Geraldo Gentil (1996) · Ecological Research

Occurrence Download