Yellow to Orange Flowers 313 



Unlike the Large species, this Small Yellow Lady's Slip- 

 per usually seeks the seclusion of the hazy hollows and the 

 moist misty woods. Rightly have these lovely sweet- 

 scented flowers been proclaimed 



" Golden slippers meet for fairies' feet." 



YELLOW POND LILY 



Nymphaa polysepala. Water-Lily Family 



Leaves: all floating, eight to fourteen inches in diameter, broad-ovate, 

 thick, deeply cordate, on stout half-cylindrical petioles. Flowers: two 

 to five inches in diameter ; sepals eight to twelve, unequal, concave and 

 roundish; petals eleven to eighteen, dilated, truncate, shorter than the 

 stamens. Fruit: globose, indehiscent. 



This Pond Lily has numerous rounded concave sepals, 

 which are of a deep orange-yellow colour inside and usually 

 streaked and blotched with purple-red on the outside, and 

 assume the function of petals; for the real petals of this 

 plant, though very numerous, are inconspicuous and resem- 

 ble the stamens, being thick, short, and fleshy. 



The Yellow Pond Lily is not so beautiful as its cousin, 

 the White Water-lily, yet the golden-hued mountain species 

 is very fragrant ; it has handsome floating foliage, and flow- 

 ers which poets have not disdained to praise. 



Longfellow described Hiawatha's canoe as floating 



" Upon the river 

 Like a yellow leaf in autumn, 

 Like a yellow water-lily." 



This Pond Lily grows in still waters and slow streams, 

 where, springing from thick, horizontal, deeply submerged 

 rootstocks, the long stalks, which are flattened on the inner 

 side and rounded on the outer side, uphold the gleaming 

 floral cups, In many an alpine lake 



