Performance assessment of Nymphaea accessions for landscape use under Coimbatore condition

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the growth performance of nine Nymphaea accessions for landscape use under the climatic conditions of Coimbatore. The experimental design was laid out in Completely Randomized Block Design (CRD) with three replications at Botanical Garden, Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. All the accessions showed significant variations for vegetative and reproductive parameters such as number of leaves, leaf width, petiole length and number of flowers. The experimental results showed that the growth performance of different tropical Nymphaea accessions with various colors such as N. colorata, N. ‘Red Flare’, N. ‘Peach Blow’ and N. capensis were comparatively better and can be exploited for landscape use under Coimbatore conditions. During the months of summer, the growth performance of hardy water lilies showed somber growth when compared to that of tropical water lilies.