14 POLYANDRIA— MONOGYNIA. Nuphar. 



white, red, or blue, closing, and sinking more or less 

 below the surface of the water, at night. 



1. N. alba. Great White Water-lily. 



Leaves heart-shaped, entire ; even beneath. Petals ellip- 

 tic-oblong. Rays of the stigma sixteen, recurved. Root 

 horizontal. 



N. alba. Linn. Sp. PL 729. mild.v.2. \\52. Fl.Br.570. Comp. 

 ed. 4. 94. Engl. Bot.v. 3. t. 160. Hook. Lond. t. 140. Scot. 

 1 69. DeCand. Syst. v. 2. 56. Rail Syn. 368. Fl. Dan. t. 602. 

 Ger.Em. 8 19./. Maitli. Falgr. v. 2. 245./. Camer.Epit. 634./. 

 Brunf.Herb.v. 1.37./ Lob. Ic, 595./. Ehrh. PL Of.45b. 



N. n. 1067. HalL Hist. v. 2. 20. 



N. Candida. Fuchs. Hist. 535./ 



In clear pools and slow rivers. 



Perennial. July. 



Root tuberous, horizontal, sending down numerous long, stout ra- 

 dicles, which are fibrous at the extremity. Leaves floating, a span 

 wide, oval-heartshaped, with nearly parallel or close lobes at 

 the base, entire, smooth, their radiating veins underneath not 

 prominent, in which it differs from the American N. odorata. 

 Footstalks and Jiower-stalks cylindrical. Flowers 4 or 5 inches 

 wide, white, with yellow stamens and pistil, the upper surface of 

 the calyx-leaves white, often tinged with pale red, altogether 

 very beautiful, though destitute of scent. They expand in sun- 

 shine, and the middle of the day only, closing towards evening, 

 when they recline on the surface of the water, or sink beneath 

 it. The berry gradually decays at the bottom of the water, scat- 

 tering its seeds in the mud. Every part of the herb is highly 

 vascular, perspiring rapidly, and, though so succulent, drying 

 very soon. It is perhaps the most magnificent of our native 

 flowers. The sinking of the flowers under water at night having 

 been doubted, or at least denied, I have been careful to verify 

 it in this species. The same circumstance is recorded of the 

 Egyptian N. Lotus, horn the most remote antiquity. The stimulus 

 of light, which indeed acts evidently on many other blossoms 

 and leaves, ex}Dands and raises, with peculiar force, these splen- 

 did white flowers, that the pollen may reach the stigma unin- 

 jured ; and when that stimulus ceases to act, they close again, 

 drooping by their own weight, to a certain depth. The still more 

 ponderous fruit finally sinks to the bottom. 



267. NUPHAR. Yellow Water-lily. 



Prodr. Fl GrcBc. v. 1 . 361 . Comp. ed. 4. 94. Dryand. in Ait. Hort. 



Kew. ed. 2. v. 3.295. DeCand. SysL v. 2. 59. 

 Under Nymphsea, in Linn. Gen. 264. Jnss. 6vS. FL Br. 569. 



Gcertn. t. \9, lutea. 



