• Summer mornings are best for viewing water flowers.

    Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens

    District of Columbia

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  • Changes to Visitor Services due to Sequestration

    Due to mandatory, across-the-board budget cuts, some visitor services in this park have changed. Please check the Plan Your Visit section for more information.

Freshwater Plants

A spring flower of the nuphar, a species older than North America
This is the flower of the nuphar, a species older than North America and the probable ancestor of both lotus and water lilies around the world.
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Water lilies share many characteristics with their cousins, the lotus, and common ancestor, the nuphar.
These winter hardy water lilies have a cleft in their leaf like the nuphar and the lotus where the cleft has sealed.  Like the nuphar the leaf is leathery, and like the lotus there are rings of stamens.
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A singe ovary and sealed cleft in the leaf and taller growing habit are characteristic of the lotus.
The lotus grows tall in the ponds shading out its cousin the water lily.  The leaves have waxy bubbles that shed water.  Both water lilies and lotus have a cleft leaf, but in the lotus the cleft has sealed.  Like the nuphar it produces seed in a multi-chambered ovary at the center of the flower.
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Did You Know?

streams of Washington, DC

Old Washington, DC was a place of rivers.  Compare the map here to a current river map.  Where did the rivers go?