yellow water-lily

Habitat for Nuphar lutea ranges widely from moving to stagnant waters of "shallow lakes, ponds, swamps, river and stream margins, canals, ditches, and tidal reaches of freshwater streams"; alkaline to acidic waters; and sea level to mountainous lakes up to 3,000 metres in altitude. The species is less tolerant of water pollution than water-lilies in the genus Nymphaea. This aquatic plant grows in shallow water and wetlands, with its roots in the sediment and its leaves floating on the water surface; it can grow in water up to 5 metres deep. It is usually found in shallower water than the white water-lily, and often in beaver ponds. Since the flooded soils are deficient in oxygen, aerenchyma in the leaves and rhizome transport oxygen from the atmosphere to the rhizome roots. Often there is mass flow from the young leaves into the rhizome, and out through the older leaves. This "ventilation mechanism" has become the subject of research because of this species' substantial benefit to the surrounding ecosystem by "exhaling" methane gas from lake sediments.

The specific epithet lutea, from the Latin luteus, means deep yellow or golden yellow.