Scientific name: Nymphoides indica
Water Snowflake is a pretty, fast-growing, perennial water plant. A blooming colony looks like snow-flakes on water. The leaves are rounded and floating on water. The flowers are delicate white and with yellow centres. The petals have unusual, feathery edges. The flowers are formed above the floating leaves with 2-4 cm long stalks. It gets its common name, of floating hearts because of the heart-shaped, bright green leaves which lie on the water surface like those of water lilies. Although they bear some resemblance to water lilies, they are not related. New plants are formed all the time where the floating stolons (above-ground, modified stems) form tufted plantlets along their lengths. The mother plant has a short, thick stem which is rooted in the mud at the bottom of the pond. This photographs was taken from a pond in my native place. After many years when i returned to the pond, to my surprise this has bloomed wonderfully, as if it is for me. My daughter was so thrilled to come with me to the brink of the pond and she even helped me to get into the pond to snap this shot. It was photographed on the memorable day the 12th October, 2011.
