Abstract: Plant type is an important ornamental trait of garden plants, and cultivating abundant ornamental traits is one of the breeding goals of garden plants. As an important garden plant in China, Nelumbo nucifera's ideal plant type breeding should be developed into two extreme plant types: high, large and extremely small. In this study, the cytological basis, physiological mechanism and molecular mechanism of N. nucifera type regulation were systematically reviewed. The future research directions of exploring the development model and gene regulation mechanism of stem apex meristem and intermediate meristem, mining the key genes of GAs and AUX in synthesis and signal transduction, and exploiting the QTL locus and related genes accurately by using molecular marker technology were proposed, in order to provide references for the development and utilization of N. nucifera germplasm resources.