Water lily research paper

Water lily (Nymphaea lotus) bulbs from Mankhanwa River in Ibi – Nigeria were quantified for their biochemical composition. Proximate composition, anti-nutritional factors, minerals, vitamins and phytochemical contents in the plant bulb were assayed using Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) standard methods.

For ∼225 million y, all seed plants were woody trees, shrubs, or vines. Shortly after the origin of flowering plants ∼140 million y ago, Nymphaeales (water lilies) became one of the first seed plant lineages to become herbaceous through loss of the meristematic cell population known as the vascular cambium.

Secondary growth provides the additional fluid transport capacity and mechanical support necessary for large, photosynthetic canopies to operate. A vascular cambium and production of secondary xylem and phloem are plesiomorphic for angiosperms.

Here, we sequenced and assembled a draft genome of the water lily Nymphaea thermarum, an emerging system for the study of early flowering plant evolution, and compared it to genomes from other cambium-bearing and cambium-less lineages (e.g., monocots and Nelumbo ). This revealed lineage-specific patterns of gene loss and divergence.