Nymphaea zenkeri Gilg has remained an enigma since its description early this century. A specimen clearly matching this description was found in a small collection of plants recently made in South West Nigeria by Elizabeth Nicholson, sent in to Kew for naming. This species is not recorded for West Africa in the Flora of West Tropical Africa ed. 2 but a search through the unidentified material at Kew and the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) showed that it was not in fact the first time that similar material had been collected