98 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Petioles stout, terete, 13 to 15 mm. in diameter, smooth, more or less silky-pubescent; 
leaf blades ovate, 22 to 35 em. long and 16 to 28cm. wide, broadest just above the base, 
thick, smooth and shining dark green above, densely silky-pubescent beneath, the 
principal lateral veins about 24 on each side, distinct and parallel for two-thirds the 
Fic. 28,—Leaf outline of Nymphaea ovata. Seale }. 
distance to the margin; sinuses 
open but very narrow, 7 to 9cm. 
long; flowers depressed-globose, 
30 to 40 mm. in diameter, 18 to 
23 cm. high; sepals 6, when 
spread measuring 65 to 82 mm.; 
the outer ones 24 to 30mm, long, 
20 to 25 mm. wide, oblong to 
suborbicular, often asymmetri- 
cal, silky-pubescent on the outer 
surface, strongly convex, green 
except sometimes at the tips, 
there yellowish; inner sepals 28 
to 32 mm. long and about as 
broad, broadly deltoid-obovate, 
truncate or emarginate, glabrous 
or sparingly pubescent near the 
middle of the base, narrowed at 
the base to a short, broad claw, 
bright chrome yellow throughout 
or greenish toward the base; 
stamens in 5 or 6 rows, the 
anthers twice as long as the fila- 
ments; fruit globose-ovoid, 
slightly constricted above, 30 to 
35 mm. high, 30 to 40 mm. in 
diameter, rather inconspicu- 
ously ribbed below, prominently 
80 above, green becoming yellowish above; rim of disk vertical, 5 to 7 mm. high; 
disk depressed 5 to 8 mm., 22 to 24 mm. in diameter, almost orbicular, smooth in 
the center, chrome yellow; rays buff, 13 to 20, usually 15 to 17, 5 to 8 mm. long, 
extending to within 2 to 4 mm. of the edge of the disk, linear-lanceolate, 1.3 mm. 
wide at the base, narrower and acutish at the apex, usually 
confluent at the base, with a strong median groove; seeds 
3.5 to 4 mm. long, 3 mm, in diameter, ovoid, pointed, with a 
prominent acute raphe. (Puates 42, C, facing p. 96; 43, 
B, facing p. 97. Fiaures 7, a, 28, 29.) 
Additional specimens examined: 
Dry— 
Texas: New Braunfels, June !7, 1906, Otto Locke; same 
locality, June 15, 1910, Otto Locke: San Marcos, No- 
vember 6, 1897, Trelease. 
This can not be confounded with any other species, 
Although its leaves are pubescent beneath they are very dif- 
Fig. 29.—Stigmatie pat- 
tern of Nymphaeaovata. 
Natural size, 
erent in outline from those of the other species whose leaves are pubescent. 
Material collected by Mr. Andrew Allison at Slidell, Louisiana, in July, 1904, 
resembles this very closely; unfortunately it consists of leaves only, One sheet in the 
