Viviparous Waterlilies have the capacity to cause new plants to emerge while still attached to the parent plant. These new little plants are called plantlets. There are a few tropical day blooming waterlilies that produce plantlets from their pads. A few of the tropical night bloomers produce these plantlets from spent flowers, as do some hardy waterlilies.
The tropical day blooming variety N. Micrantha, has the ability to produce plantlets from its' leaves and this species is always present in the breeding of all existing viviparous cultivars. A viviparous plant emerges at the place where the pad and stem connect. As the parent plant fades, the plantlets become more mature and developed and occasionally bloom-- while still joined to the parent plant.
The color spectrum of the species plant N. Micrantha range from white, light blue or medium blue. The white form of N. Micrantha is extremely viviparous. The vivips make vivips while still joined to the parent plant.
Some tropical day blooming viviparous waterlilies are:
Innocence
Crystal
Vanilla Sky
Carla's Sonshine
Lindsey Woods
Panama Pacific
Queen of Siam
Shirley Byrne
Tina
Teri Dunn
Angela
August Koch
Bagdad
Josephine
Margaret Mary
Paul Stetson
Nora
Patricia
Blink
Mrs. Martin E. Randing
Mrs. Robert Sawyer
Pink Platter
Mme. Ganna Walska
Islamorada
Some hardy viviparous waterlilies are:
Barbara Dobbins
Georgia Peach
Phoebus
Colonel A.J.Welch
Some hardy waterlilies do produce new plants from flowers that have ceased blooming, these are often offspring of the hardy viviparous 'Colonel A.J.Welch'
Some tropical night bloomers from the subgenus Hydrocallis will make new plantlets from flowers. The tropical night blooming species are N. Lasiophylla and N. Prolifera.
The propagation of viviparous tropical waterlilies can hasten their growth exponentially. Removing the pad once the vivips are evident, placing it in a propagating tank and weighing it down (often called 'bricking'), and adding grow lamps to add light as well as heat, heating the water to 80 degrees will produce starter leaves in three days and plantlets with roots within six days. If the viviparous plantlets are potted up and are kept in the propagating tanks in shallow water (one to two inches beneath the surface of the water) with heat and light for 20-30 days, you will have fully mature plants.
When propagating plants this way, make sure your water temps stay between 80-90F degrees and use a 75 watt floodlight with blue/purple coating. Plants need high levels of blue light for root development and growth and red spectrum lighting for blooms.
Baby vivips can also be 'bagged', once the leaves have formed, simply bag the vivips in a baggie full of water and placed in a sunny location in a pond, the babies will become somewhat mature until needed.
Both Kit Knotts and Sean Stevens have written extensively about viviparous waterlilies.
