Water lily plants are key group on study of the flowering plant phylogeny. The internal transcribed spacers (ITS) and the 5.8S coding region of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) of seven taxa were sequenced to study molecular phylogeny and evolution of Nymphaeales sensu lato . The ITS phylogenetic trees were constructed based on the sequences and a combined data set with sequences from GenBank. The results obtained from ITS sequences also supported that the genus Ceratophyllum could be considered the ancest...