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Crested Floatingheart
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Crested Floatingheart
ative Photo: Vihang Ghalsasi
Common name: Crested Floatingheart • Assamese: পানীকোলা Panikola, পানসিউলী Pan-seuli • Hindi: कुमुदिनी Kumudini, Tagarmul • Malayalam: Cheruthettambel, Neythel • Marathi: कुमुदिनी Kumudini
Botanical name: Nymphoides hydrophylla    Family: Menyanthaceae (Floatingheart family)
Synonyms: Nymphoides cristata, Limnanthemum cristatum, Menyanthes hydrophylla

Crested Floatingheart is an aquatic floating herb. Stems 10-30 cm, rooting from nodes. Leaves few per node. The plant is has it signature floating heart-shaped leaves. Flowers small, simple, five-petaled, star shaped. Petals are oblong-round, winged along their length with a crest-like lobe. Stamens five, short, between the interstices of the petals, with apices, whitish, interposed with five rather short staminodes, with which out of the middle of the opening a green globule, cuspidate. This flower has a cousin called Water Snowflake which has frilly petals. Flowering: August-September.

Identification credit: Sujit Prajapati Photographed in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai & Bidri, Jharkhand.

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