[2] The pools, which are darkened with organic material, are shaded by the canopy of tropical forest.

Later, it was discovered that this was a Nomen illegitimum, as the name was preoccupied by the French fossil waterlily Nymphaea minuta Saporta described in 1890.

[6] The type specimen was collected in shaded rain pools beneath coastal forest near Tampolo, Madagascar in 1999.

[2] The specific epithet dimorpha references the two distinctive growth forms of this species.

[2] In cultivation it may grow four times larger than plants observed in their natural habitat.