FoI
Crested Floatingheart   
Foto info
Crested Floatingheart
P Native Herb
Photo: Vihang Ghalsasi
Common name: Crested Floatingheart • Hindi: कुमुदिनी Kumudini, Tagarmul • Marathi: कुमुदिनी Kumudini
Botanical name: Nymphoides hydrophylla    Family: Menyanthaceae (Floatingheart family)
Synonyms: Menyanthes hydrophylla, Nymphoides cristata, Limnanthemum cristatum

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.

Photographed in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai.