Nymphaea amazonumMart. & Zucc.

Amazon waterlily

WFO wfo-0000381436 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Nymphaea amazonum, photographed by Vincent A. Vos
fig. a Vincent A. Vos, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-04-27 / obs. 69817219
Nymphaea amazonum, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. b Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 31083244
Nymphaea amazonum, photographed by Vincent A. Vos
fig. c Vincent A. Vos, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 69817237
Nymphaea amazonum, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. d Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 31083245

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 30 botanical countries

Regions where Nymphaea amazonum is native: Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Windward Is. Mexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáPeruSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela Cayman Is.Leeward Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Nymphaea amazonum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Bolivia BOL SOUTHERN AMERICA
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Cayman Is. CAY
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Gulf MXG NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 52 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 18.9 °C 23.3 °C 24.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.6 °C 30.4 °C 33.0 °C
Annual rainfall 1,205 mm 3,170 mm 3,571 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 22 mm 219 mm 459 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 52 research-grade observations of Nymphaea amazonum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 16 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Castalia amazonum Britton & P.Wilson
  • Leuconymphaea amazonum Kuntze
  • Leuconymphaea goudotiana (Planch.) Kuntze
  • Nymphaea alboviridis A.St.-Hil.
  • Nymphaea amazonum f. goudotiana (Planch.) Casp.
  • Nymphaea amazonum var. amazonum
  • Nymphaea amazonum var. forma-submersa Sagot
  • Nymphaea amazonum var. goudotiana (Planch.) Conard
  • Nymphaea blanda Hook.
  • Nymphaea blanda f. amazonum (Mart. & Zucc.) Planch.
  • Nymphaea blanda var. amazonum (Mart. & Zucc.) Planch.
  • Nymphaea foetida Gardner ex Planch.
  • Nymphaea goudotiana Planch.
  • Nymphaea integrifolia Salzm. ex Planch.
  • Nymphaea nocturna March ex Hook.
  • Nymphaea rudgeana var. amazonum (Mart. & Zucc.) Griseb.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.