In July 2016, I cultivated a Water Lily in my small fish tank, which led to the observation of vivipary in this aquatic plant. Vivipary refers to the growth of young plants on the leaves of the parent plant. It is noteworthy that not all Water Lily species exhibit vivipary. One species that does exhibit this property is Nymphaea micrantha (Blue Egyptian Lotus) [1] from Africa. Any hybrid resulting from crossbreeding with this species will retain the vivipary characteristic.

Reference:

[1] Su Q, Wang HY, Tian M, Li CN, Li XM, Huang ZW, Bu ZY, Lu JS. Transcriptomic insight into viviparous growth in water lily. Biomed Res Int 2022;2022:8445484. | Read article |