Nymphaea Pubescens: Pink Water Lily

After a long wait of one year my pink water lily in my balcony garden decided to bloom! Last time the plant gifted me a flower was on 8th September 2013. And I am very grateful to her!

Growing water lilies in tiny terracotta pools is quite a task. Daily a few hours of sunshine is a must I noticed and positioning it correctly helped. Now both my purple water lily and the pink variety have a competition for my attention and appreciation. Here is a short photo essay on pink water lilies.

Pink Water Lily in My Balcony Garden

Pink Water Lily in My Balcony Garden

The peculiarity of this variety is that it blooms in the evening and shuts down its petals early morning. The purple one stays open throughout the day shutting itself tight at night. Getting the deep pink color in my photographs was difficult and these are taken with flash.

It is slightly confusing whether it is the Nymphaea rubra (red) variety or the Nymphaea pubescens (pink) variety because the color of the petals indicates it is rubra but it doesn’t have purpulish leaves as it should have. The leaves are pure green so I will believe it is of the pubescens variety.

Close up picture of pink water lily.

A smiling pink water lily in my balcony garden. And once more I am tempted to take a hot steaming cup of tea, sit in my balcony and just gaze at it.

This I tried taking against the rising sun. (Please ignore the dark balcony grills in the back ground.)

Nymphaea Pubescens: Pink Water Lily

Nymphaea Pubescens: Pink Water Lily

Look at the stamens, all pink and folded in namaste mudra!

folded in ‘namaste’ mudra

Also see: Pink Water Lily of Thailand

Common name: Pink Water Lily, Pink Lotus

‱ Manipuri: Tharo angouba
‱ Tamil: VeLLAmbal
‱ Sanskrit: Kumuda
‱ Bengali: Shaluk
‱ Malayalam: Neerambal
‱ Kannada: Kannaidile
‱ Assamese: Nal

Botanical name: Nymphaea pubescens
Family: Nymphaeaceae (Waterlily family)
Synonyms: Nymphaea lotus var. pubescens, Nymphaea purpurea, Nymphaea esculenta

My entry for : I Heart Macro
Today’s Flowers.

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