Nanhu Lake (30°29′N，114°21′E) is a shallow lake along the middle reaches of Yangtze River with a main surface area of 400 hm2, situated in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. There were large amounts of hydrophyte including submerged hydrophyte in Nanhu Lake in early 1980s. However, it has been developed into a eutrophic lake because of the inputs of massive nutrients and the water quality has been deteriorated, and no submerging plant could be discovered now. The distributions of the total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) in aquatic plant residues within 30 cm sediment cores of 5 sampling sites were studied during May, 2006. The results show that plant residue is an important N and P pool, substantial differences of aquatic plant residues content could be found among different sampling sites, and the largest amounts of aquatic plant residues in 5 sites are different according to its depth——site Ⅰ is in the depth of 11-15 cm; site Ⅱ is in the depth of 25-30 cm, and site Ⅲ is in the depth of 16-20 cm. However, site Ⅳ and site Ⅴ gradually increase from surface to bottom within 30cm sediments column in Nanhu Lake. The research on the aquatic plant residues shows that spatial distribution of aquatic plant in Nanhu Lake was uneven during the past decades .TN in the section of 0 cm to 5 cm is 20.230 mg•g-1, and 20.613 mg•g-1 in the section of 25 cm to 30 cm, respectively. The correlation coefficient between TN content and depth is 0.5851 (P > P 0.05), indicating no significant correlation between them. While TP in the two sections above are 2.546 mg•g-1 and 0.634 mg•g-1, respectively, four times discrepancy, and the correlation coefficient is -0.9507(P＜P 0.01), with a close negative correlation between TP content and the depth. Which means that the earlier the sediments were, the lower the TP content was,with vice versa. This is consistent with the eutrophication process of the Nanhu Lake. The study shows that aquatic plant residues in the sediments could be used as a new evidence during the eutrophic process, and the TP value could regarding as index of environment change, which provides a significant reference to the investigation of the eutrophic process in shallow lakes from the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River region in China.