This flower that blooms in the water is actually not a poppy

Water poppy is also an aquatic plant that blooms profusely this time of year.

[Water poppy Hydrocleys nymphoides] Butomaceae >> Hydrocleys

Water poppy, also known as water golden flower, like the water shield grass mentioned a few days ago, is not native to this country either, but comes from Central and South America.

Unlike water shield grass, which I am quite familiar with, so much so that I took it for a native plant. Water poppy is also very common, but I feel I had never seen it as a child.

For me, knowing plants is like a handle on an intricate web of memories. Whenever I learn a plant, a long thread of memory is pulled, shaking a few fragments loose from the web of memory. Last year I learned water shield grass, and I recalled a certain university internship at a Suzhou garden. Tracing back further, it seems I saw it when I visited Taihu Lake as a small child. The memory thread of water poppy is very short, going back no earlier than 2010.

But in recent years, water poppy has spread throughout the south, becoming an extremely common plant in all kinds of parks and gardens.

Water poppy is a plant of the family Butomaceae (placed in Alismataceae within the plant classification system adopted by PPBC). Because its flower resembles plants of the Papaveraceae, it got the name "water poppy".

The flowering period of water poppy can be called long; it can bloom in spring, and in summer and autumn the flowers are at their most abundant, with emerald green leaves and bright, dazzling flowers.

I think water poppy most resembles the California poppy (a common flowerbed flower) of the Papaveraceae. Both have pale yellow, thin petals and firework-like radiating stamens, and the flowers are about the same size, around 3-5 cm in diameter.

The photo above shows California poppy, the photo below shows water poppy

But if you look closely, it is not hard to spot the characteristics of the water poppy flower. Its flower has only three petals, the base of the petals is bright yellow, and the stamens are purple-brown.

But like many flowers, the number of petals of water poppy occasionally changes. I have photographed a four-petaled water poppy, which looks even more like a plant of the Papaveraceae.

A four-petaled water poppy

In addition, water poppy flowers also open in the morning and close at dusk.

Taken at the end of December in a certain year

Water poppy is a perennial aquatic floating-leaf plant, often planted in shallow water along park waterfronts. Here in Hangzhou, water poppy is almost evergreen, and can even bloom in winter, except that the leaves in winter are not as dense as in summer.

The leaves of water poppy are heart-shaped. In summer, the leaves of water poppy are really quite lush. In shallow water, the stems of water poppy are longer, and the layered leaves rise several centimeters above the water surface, looking just like grassland on land.

In deep water, the leaves of water poppy float on the water surface. On the underside of the floating leaves, you can clearly see the raised midrib, which has become an air sac providing buoyancy.

The air sac on the underside of the leaf

Author: Wentian (Plant Culture)

Author: Jiang Mouren

Images: Jiang Mouren (unless otherwise noted)

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