The world's smallest waterlily was saved from extinction by a simple gardening trick
In short: Nymphaea thermarum, a tiny Rwandan waterlily, vanished from the wild when its only habitat was diverted for farming. Once thought doomed, the species was rescued by a horticulturist who realized it needed shallow mud, not deep water, to bloom. Now, this rare plant is unlocking secrets of evolutionary biology.
Discovered in 1987 by German botanist Eberhard Fischer near a hot spring in Rwanda, Nymphaea thermarum was named for its thermal habitat. Its existence was precarious from the start; the entire wild population occupied a tiny area of just a few square meters. When local farmers diverted the spring water for agriculture, the habitat dried up, and the species was declared extinct in the wild around 2009.
Before the wild population vanished, Fischer had collected samples, but botanists struggled to keep the species alive. While the plants survived in collections at the Bonn Botanical Garden and later Kew Gardens, they refused to flower, leaving researchers unable to propagate them from seed. The breakthrough came when Kew horticulturist Carlos Magdalena deduced that the lilies required specific conditions: shallow water or mud, mimicking the edges of their native hot spring. By adjusting the environment to these precise needs, he successfully triggered flowering in 2009.
Today, Nymphaea thermarum is a vital research tool for studying the evolution of flowering plants. Because it belongs to an early-diverging lineage, it provides a unique window into the traits of ancient plants. Researchers value its small size, rapid lifecycle, and relatively small genome, which make it far more practical for laboratory study than other water lilies. Currently, scientists are using the plant to investigate the endosperm, a nutrient-rich tissue unique to flowering plants that serves as the foundation for much of the global food supply, including rice, corn, and wheat.
The lily’s reproductive behavior is equally fascinating. It naturally switches between female and male phases, yet it frequently self-fertilizes—a rare trait among water lilies that may have hindered its survival in the wild. By studying these reproductive mechanisms, researchers hope to better understand the biological processes that define flowering plants, potentially identifying the genes that control their development and evolution.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Whitehead Institute of MIT
- Also: Nymphaea thermarum
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