In botany, Nymphaeaceae is the name of a family of plants which grow in water. The family is also called water-lily family. The family has five genera and about 70 species. The roots grow in soil underwater, and the leaves and flowers float on the water surface.
Also, the Nymphaeaceae are more diverse and wdespread than other basal angiosperms. Nymphaeaceae is in the order Nymphaeales. According to the most widely accepted flowering plant classification system, this is the second diverging group of angiosperms after Amborella.
References
↑Les, Donald H. et al 1999. Phylogeny, classification and floral evolution of water lilies (Nymphaeaceae; Nymphaeales): a synthesis of non-molecular, rbcL, matK, and 18S rDNA Data. Systematic Botany24 (1) 28-46.
↑Coiro, Mario & Maria Rosaria Barone Lumaga 2013. Aperture evolution in Nymphaeaceae: insights from a micromorphological and ultrastructural investigation, Grana, DOI:10.1080/00173134.2013.769626
↑Pellicer, Jaume et al 2013. Insights into the dynamics of genome size and chromosome evolution in the early diverging angiosperm lineage Nymphaeales (water lilies). Genome. 10.1139/gen-2013-0039