Nymphaeaceae

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Nymphaeaceae Temporal range: 130–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Early Cretaceous – Recent
Nymphaea nouchali
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Order:	Nymphaeales
Family:	Nymphaeaceae Salisb.[1]
Genera
Extant genera[2] Barclaya Euryale Nuphar Nymphaea Victoria Fossil genera †Allenbya †Jaguariba †Notonuphar †Nuphaea †Microvictoria †Monetianthus †Susiea
Synonyms[3]
Barclayaceae Euryalaceae Nupharaceae Nympheaceae

Nymphaeaceae (/ˌnɪmfiˈeɪsi.iː, -ˌaɪ/) is a family of flowering plants, commonly called water lilies. They live as rhizomatous aquatic herbs in temperate and tropical climates around the world. The family contains five genera^[4] with about 70 known species.^[5] Water lilies are rooted in soil in bodies of water, with leaves and flowers floating on or rising from the surface. Leaves are oval and heart-shaped in Barclaya. Leaves are round, with a radial notch in Nymphaea and Nuphar, but fully circular in Victoria and Euryale.

Water lilies are a well-studied family of plants because their large flowers with multiple unspecialized parts were initially considered to represent the floral pattern of the earliest flowering plants. Later genetic studies confirmed their evolutionary position as basal angiosperms. Analyses of floral morphology and molecular characteristics and comparisons with a sister taxon, the family Cabombaceae, indicate, however, that the flowers of extant water lilies with the most floral parts are more derived than the genera with fewer floral parts.^{[clarification needed]} Genera with more floral parts, Nuphar, Nymphaea, Victoria, have a beetle pollination syndrome, while genera with fewer parts are pollinated by flies or bees, or are self- or wind-pollinated.^[6] Thus, the large number of relatively unspecialized floral organs in the Nymphaeaceae is not an ancestral condition for the clade.