NYMPH/EA FLAVA. 

 AUDUBON'S YELLOW WATER-LILY. 



NATURAL ORDER, NYMPHACE^. 



Nymph^A FLAVA, Leitner. — Root-stock erect. Leaves ovate-orbicular, spotted, lobes sharp- 

 pointed. Flowers, yellow. (Mrs. Mary Treat, in Harper's Magazine, vol. 55, p. 365.) 



N Thomas Moore's delicious poem, Lalla Rookh, he tells 

 us of 



" Those virgin lilies all the night 



Bathing their beauties in the lake, 

 That they may rise more fresh and bright 

 When their beloved Sun's awake." 



This is in allusion to the well-known fact that the flowers 

 of the water-lily open early in the morning about sunrise, 

 and close before the evening time. But if we carry the 

 imagery further than the poet intended, we may say of the 

 present species that it has been bathing its beauty in a very long 

 night in the Florida lakes, for only recently have we had any 

 certain knowledge of its existence, and this through the keen 

 investigations of a noted botanist, Mrs. Mary Treat, of Vine- 

 land, New Jersey, who gave us the first detailed account of it in 

 the number of " Harper's Magazine " above cited. Botanists, 

 however, were made partially acquainted with it through a colored 

 drawing in Audubon's "Birds of America," published in 1843. 

 In his picture No. 41 1 he represents a swan, Cygmts Americanus, 

 swimming among a lot of yellow water-lilies, which he calls 

 ''NymphcBa flava, Leitner." This swan is an Arctic bird. 

 About the middle of September flocks come down from the 



