A handsome aquatic, erect, large herb with long, creeping root stock and milky juice; leaves orbicular, peltate, palmately nerved, up to 35 cm across, raised high above the water surface, glaucous, membranous; petioles and peduncles sparsely prickly; flowers solitary, 5-10 cm across, fragrant, rose-pink, white or yellow; sepals 4-5, oblong, obtuse, 5-10 veined, inserted on the top of the scape, glabrous or pilose on upper surface; petals indefinite, 4-12 cm long, many seriate, elliptic, spreading; stamens numerous, spirally arranged, anthers with a clubbed appendage; carpels numerous, apocarpous, ovoid, free, loosely sunken in the pits of large, fleshy, obconic torus; style very short, exserted; stigma dialated, ovules1-2, pendulous; fruiting torus spongy, dry, containing dry, ripe, loose fruits in its cavities; seeds many, exalbuminous.