THE LOTUS LILY OF SAINT WILLIAMS. 



By Arthur Herbert Richardson, 

 Norfolk Forest Station, Saint Williams, Ontario. 



It was August the twenty-fourth of the present 

 year that I first made the acquaintance of this rare 

 plant. I had waited purposely until I knew the 

 flowers would be open to the sun in order that I 

 might have a first and lasting memory picture of the 

 blossoms at their best. 



The bed occupies a part of Long Point Bay, 

 Lake Erie, a few 

 hundred feet west of 

 where the village road 

 of Saint Williams de- 

 scends the cliff to the 

 beach, and is about 

 ten acres in extent. 



The Lotus Lily, Ne- 

 lumbo lutea, (Willd.) 

 Pers. is a native of 

 American and not in- 

 troduced as some have 

 thought. And one may 

 well wonder how a 

 plant of such rare 

 occurrence has ac- 

 quired so many differ- 

 ent names, for it is 

 known in different 

 parts of the United 

 States as: Sacred 

 Bean, Yellow Ne- 

 lumbo. Water Chin- 

 quapin, American 

 Lotus or Nelumbo, 

 Great Yellow Water 

 Lily, Wankapin or 

 Yankapin, D u c k - 

 acorn and Rattle-or 

 Water-nut. 



The flowers are pale 

 yellow in color and 

 vary from five to ten inches in width. Before they 

 open, the buds are the shape and size formed by the 

 two hands placed slightly curved so that the wrists 

 and finger-tips meet. The leaves vary in size from 

 three to four inches to two feet in diameter. They 

 are nearly orbicular and often have the centre slight- 

 ly depressed or cupped. Unlike the flowers of the 

 Sweet Scented Water Lily or the Yellow Pond 

 Lily which float on the surface of the water, the 

 flowers of the Lotus Lily stand high above the 

 surface. Occasionally too, the leaves do likewise, 

 but the majority of them float on the surface of the 

 water in the same manner as the leaves of the other 

 two lilies but are easily distinguished from these by 

 the absence of a deeply-cordate cleft at the base. 



(Photo bv rv 



THE LO']'l\S 

 Taveiner; trom 



The fiuit is an inverted cone which dries when ripe, 

 enclosing the hard seeds in little cavities. Because 

 of the rattling sound made by them, the plant has 

 received (in some localities), the name of Rattle- 

 nut. 



From the information I have been able to gather 

 about this plant, its occurrence in Canada seems to be 



very uncommon. 

 Gray's Manual of Bo- 

 tany includes Lake 

 Erie and Lake On- 

 tario in a general way 

 as its range but men- 

 tions no specific place. 

 Britton and Brown's 

 Flora does not men- 

 tion it from Canada at 

 all. Macoun's Cata- 

 logue of Canadian 

 Plants 1883, reports ii 

 in the Detroit River 

 and near the mouth of 

 the Welland Canal. 

 Dodge's Catalogue of 

 the Flora of Point 

 Pelee, mentions only 

 the Ohio shore, and 

 Spotton, in compiling 

 his Ontario Botany, 

 either did not know of 

 its existence, or did not 

 consider its occurr- 

 ence common enough 

 to mention. From the 

 foregoing, therefore, 

 one may well conclude 

 that unless the plants 

 in the Detroit River 

 and the Welland Can- 

 al mentioned by Macoun in 1883 are still there. 

 Saint Williams, as far as is known, is the only 

 place in Canada where the Lotus Lily grows. 



The bed of plants at Saint Williams is in a 

 sheltered place and unless something extraordinary 

 happens there is little fear of its being exterminated. 

 Someone has erected a wire fence a few hundred 

 feet in length along the shore side of the bed, 

 whether for protection or not I am unable to say. 

 When I visited the place in August, there were 

 hundreds of lilies in flower. No one except a 

 fifieen-inch snapping turtle, which made a pass at 

 my bare ankle prevented me from taking all I 

 wanted. 



FLOWEll. 

 The Canada Year Book, I'.H.".) 



