_Nymphaea advena (Nuphar advena)_
_Flowers_--Yellow or greenish outside, rarely purple tinged, round,
depressed, 1-1/2 to 3-1/2 in. across. Sepals 6, unequal, concave, thick,
fleshy; petals stamen-like, oblong, fleshy, short; stamens very
numerous, in 5 to 7 rows; pistil compounded of many carpels, its
stigmatic disc pale red or yellow, with 12 to 24 rays. _Leaves:_
Floating, or some immersed, large, thick, sometimes a foot long,
egg-shaped or oval, with a deep cleft at base, the lobes rounded.
_Preferred Habitat_--Standing water, ponds, slow streams.
_Flowering Season_--April-September.
_Distribution_--Rocky Mountains eastward, south to the Gulf of Mexico,
north to Nova Scotia.
Comparisons were ever odious. Because the Yellow Water-lily has the
misfortune to claim relationship with the sweet-scented white species
must it never receive its just meed of praise? Hiawatha’s canoe, let it
be remembered,
“Floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily.”
But even those who admire Longfellow’s lines see less beauty in the
golden flower-bowls floating among the large, lustrous, leathery leaves.
Sweet-scented White Water-lily; Pond Lily; Water Nymph; Water
Cabbage
_Castalia odorata (Nymphaea odorata)_
_Flowers_--Pure white or pink tinged, rarely deep pink, solitary, 3 to 8
in. across, deliciously fragrant, floating. Calyx of 4 sepals, green
outside; petals of indefinite number, overlapping in many rows, and
gradually passing into an indefinite number of stamens; outer row of
stamens with petaloid filaments and short anthers, the inner yellow
stamens with slender filaments and elongated anthers; carpels of
indefinite number, united into a compound pistil, with spreading and
projecting stigmas. _Leaves_: Floating, nearly round, slit at bottom,
shining green above, reddish and more or less hairy below, 4 to 12 in.
across, attached to petiole at centre of lower surface. Petioles and
peduncles round and rubber-like, with 4 main air-channels. _Rootstock_:
(Not true stem) thick, simple or with few branches, very long.
_Preferred Habitat_--Still water, ponds, lakes, slow streams.
_Flowering Season--_June-September.
_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the
Mississippi.
Sumptuous queen of our native aquatic plants, of the royal family to
which the gigantic _Victoria regia_ of Brazil belongs, and all the
lovely rose, lavender, blue, and golden exotic water-lilies in the
fountains of our city parks, to her man, beast, and insect pay grateful
homage. In Egypt, India, China, Japan, Persia, and Asiatic Russia, how
many millions have bent their heads in adoration of her relative the
sacred lotus! From its centre Brahma came forth; Buddha, too, whose
symbol is the lotus, first appeared floating on the mystic flower
_(Nelumbo nelumbo)_. Happily the lovely pink or white “sacred bean” or
“rose-lily” of the Nile, often cultivated here, has been successfully
naturalized in ponds about Bordentown, New Jersey, and may be elsewhere.
If he who planteth a tree is greater than he who taketh a city, that man
should be canonized who introduces the magnificent wild flowers of
foreign lands to our area of Nature’s garden.