Nymphaea odorata

Fragrant or white waterlily, Fragrant Or White Waterlily

Family: Nymphaeaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Fragrant waterlily is a naturalized perennial found in the northern Sierra Nevada Foothills, Sierra Nevada (Lake Tahoe), Sacramento Valley (Butte County), and southern Northern California coastal ranges in quiet waters, ponds, and lake edges at elevations generally below 2,700 meters. Flowering from April to August, this plant produces large white flowers up to 19 centimeters wide with numerous white petals floating gracefully on the water surface. Growing with a prostrate, branched rhizome, it spreads across water surfaces with broad, nearly round leaf blades 5 to 25 centimeters wide. Its distinctive leaves are rounded and buoyant, creating a lush green carpet on quiet waters with flowers emerging above the foliage. The fruit is a depressed-spherical structure approximately 2.5 to 3 centimeters in size, containing small seeds 1.5 to 2.5 millimeters long.

Habitat: Quiet waters, ponds, edges of lakes

Bloom period: Apr-Aug

Elevation: generally < 2700 m

Bioregions: CaRF, n SNF, SNH (Lake Tahoe), ScV (Butte Co.), SnGb, expected elsewhere

California counties: Butte, San Bernardino, San Diego, Marin, Mendocino, Alpine, Yuba, Glenn, El Dorado, Shasta, Napa, Riverside, San Mateo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.