102 LEAST YELLOW WATER-LILY. 



tiny flowers, is to the botanist one of the most inte- 

 resting plants that adorn the waters of our native 

 land. In the Victoria Regina is presented the most 

 lovely of all Water-Lilies, even the most gorgeous 

 member of the vegetable kingdom; but, in the little 

 Nuphar pumila, we see a plant essentially of the 

 same family, similar in its habits, and not far re- 

 moved in its structural characters, but proportion- 

 ally minute in all its parts as the other is gigantic. 

 If, on the one hand, the colossal size and gorgeous 

 colouring of the Great American Water-Lily excite 

 a reverential wonder and admiration in every be- 

 holder, it gives not the genuine botanist less cause 

 to wonder and admire, when his contemplation of 

 the tiny Nuphar discovers to him the same infinite 

 skill displayed in its minute structure, which equally 

 bears the same unmistakeable stamp of divinity, and 

 is equally a perfect and beautiful work indeed, 

 "very good." And thus it is with all the other 

 humble things of creation. Even 



" A blade of silver-hair-grass nodding slowly 

 In the soft wind the thistle's purple crown, 

 The ferns, the rushes tall, and mosses lowly 

 A thorn, a weed, an insect, or a stone 

 Can thrill me with sensations exquisite, 

 For all are exquisite; and every part 

 Points to the Mighty Hand that fashion'd it." 



The Nuphar pumila is not only the least of all our 

 native Water-Lilies; it is also the rarest, being, as a 



