A NEW HYBRID NYMPHAEA 



GEORGE H. PRING 



Horticulturist to the Missouri Botanical Garden 



During the past two seasons various experiments in breeding 

 water-lilies have been undertaken at the Garden, especially with 

 Nymphaea "Mrs. Edwards Whitaker" as a parent, with both in- 

 teresting and disappointing results in the progeny. 



The principal disappointment to the writer at first was the in- 

 ability to obtain a "Whitaker" type with a viviparous leaf char- 

 acter, despite the fact of using viviparous parents, such as N. 

 daubeniana, N. "Mrs. Woodrow Wilson" var. gigantea, and N. 

 "Panama Pacific," reciprocal crosses being made in each case with 

 N. "Mrs. Edwards Whitaker." This unusual leaf character pres- 

 ent in the later hybrids has originated from the species N. micran- 

 tha. The desirable factor with the viviparous hybrids is the ease 

 with which the type is perpetuated through the young plantlets 

 which grow upon the parent leaves. Propagation is accomplished 

 when thinning out the leaves during the summer, the young 

 plants being easily cut from the center of the leaves. They are 

 then potted and transferred to the greenhouse tanks for the next 

 season's display. With the non- viviparous hybrids the parent 

 plants must be dug from the ponds in October or prior to frost 

 and placed in the greenhouse tanks until they die down, when 

 they are cleaned to ascertain whether or not young basal tubers 

 have developed. The large-flowered forms of N. "Mrs. Edwards 

 Whitaker" always develop extremely large parent tubers during 

 the summer which ordinarily last but one season, and in most 

 instances they lack the small tubers necessary for the next 



season. 



t stock of this lily it is there 

 during the summer for tuber 



X NYMPHAEA "MRS. G. H. PRING," PRING, N. HYB. 



(N. ovalifolia $ X #• "Mrs. Edwards Whitaker" ^) 



Up to the present time the only pure white tropical day-bloom- 

 ing water-lily in cultivation has been the small-flowered Nymph- 

 aea flavo-virens (gracilis) native of Mexico. It has been used to 

 advantage in breeding, being the parent of such popular hybrids 

 as N. "Stella Gurney," "Mrs. C. W. Ward," and "William Stone," 



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