Nymphaeaceae Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Nymphaeaceae

Water Lily with Flower
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Nymphaeales
Family:	Nymphaeaceae Salisb. (1805)

In botany, Nymphaeaceae is the name of a family of plants which grow in water. The family is also called water-lily family.

Their flowers suggest they are one of the earliest groups of angiosperms. Modern genetic analyses by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group researchers has confirmed its basal position among flowering plants.

Also, the Nymphaeaceae are more diverse and wdespread than other basal angiosperms. Nymphaeaceae is in the order Nymphaeales. According to the most widely accepted flowering plant classification system, this is the second diverging group of angiosperms after Amborella.

Symbolism

The white water lily is the national flower of Bangladesh and state flower for Andhra Pradesh, India. The seal of Bangladesh contains a lily floating on water. The blue waterlily is the national flower of Sri Lanka. It is also the birth flower for July.

Lily pads, also known as Seeblätter, are a charge in Northern European heraldry, often coloured red (gules), and appear on the flag of Friesland and the coat of arms of Denmark (in the latter case often replaced by red hearts).

The water lily has a special place in Sangam literature and Tamil poetics, where it is considered symbolic of the grief of separation; it is considered to evoke imagery of the sunset, the seashore, and the shark.