Water Snowflake

Overview

The plant is native to Tropical & Subtropical Asia to South-West Pacific. It sometimes harvested from the wild for local use as a food. Young leaves and rhizomes are edible. It is often grown in ponds and boggy areas as an ornamental. It has become naturalized in Southern Florida.

Vernacular Names

Kumudini (Hindi-India).

Agroecology

Nymphoides indica grows in shallow, stagnant water, pools, flooded rice fields, and margins of lakes, up to 1,900 m altitude. Succeeds in full sun and partial shade. Prefers a rich, sandy loam. Plants grow best when the roots are submerged in 30-60 cm of water.

Morphology

• Rhizome - thick, rooted in the bottom soils and at stem nodes.
• Stem - non-woody consisting of a horizontally growing underground stem (rhizome).
• Leaves - alternate, shortly-stalked leaves, thickly fleshy leaf blades that float on water, are almost circular, 6-40 by 3-24 cm, with broad, heart-shaped bases, and smooth margins, glossy green above, pale, and gland dotted below.
• Fruit - ellipsoid, 6,8-8 by 3-5 mm, and contain many lens-shaped seeds.
• Seeds - pale brown, spherical, smooth and less than 1,5 mm wide.

Cultivation

Plants can reproduce in several ways. Vegetative propagation from tubers, daughter plants, rhizomes and leaves (each leaf can produce a plantlet). Plants also reproduce sexually from seed (generative propagation). Plantlets, leaves, and fragments can drift when detached from the underwater stem and move to infest new locations. Plant seeds are likely spread from waterbody to waterbody attached to water birds and mammals.

Chemical Constituents

5 lipophilic compounds (azelaic (nonanedioic) acid and 4-methyl-heptanedioic acid, hexadecanoic and stearic acid and the fatty alcohol hexadecanol), 3 seco-iridoids (7-epiexaltoside, 6″,7″-dihydro-7-epiexaltoside and menthiafolin), 3 flavonoids (3,7-di-O-methylquercetin-4'-O-β-glucoside, 3-O-methylquercetin-7-O-β-glucoside and 3,7-di-O-methylquercetin), scopoletin, ferulic acid, and the monoterpenoids foliamenthoic acid and 6,7-dihydrofoliamenthoic acid methyl ester.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• Plant decoction is drunk to cure fever and dysentery.
• Dried plants are dipped in sesamum oil for 7 days; the oil is filtered, stored and applied externally to get relief from headache, rheumatism and bile.
• Nymphoides indica herb used as an admixture along with Nymphoides macrospermum and as a substitute of Ayurvedic drug Tagara (Valeriana jatamansi Jones) in the treatment of various diseases like epilepsy (as roots and rhizomes of N. indica exhibit anticonvulsant activity), anemia, jaundice, and tuberculosis.