NUTTALLlA 



NYMPILffiA 



1101 



hydrocyanic odor." It endures the winter under pro- 

 tection at the Arnold Arboretum, Boston. 



JV. splendidum, adv. 1889 by John Saul, is presumably an 

 error. Probably some other genus. 



NYCTERtNIA. See Zaluzianskya. 



NYMPH.35A (from Nympha, in Greek and Roman 

 mythology, a nature-goddess). Syn., Castalla. Nym- 

 phceacece. WATER-LILY. POND-LILY. Figs. 1498-1502. 

 The most splendid of aquatics (except Victoria), inhab- 

 iting the north and south temperate and tropical zones. 

 About 32 well-marked species, with numerous local varie- 

 ties and many cultivated hybrids. Herbs, perennial by 

 horizontal or erect rootstocks or tubers, rooting in mud, 

 covered by 3 in. to 6 ft. of water (rarely in bogs not 

 submerged): Ivs. floating, or when crowded rising a 

 few inches above the water, round or oval, entire or 

 dentate or sinuate, flssi-cordate, often sub-peltate, 2 in. 

 to 2 ft. in diam. : fls. mostly showy, white, yellow, blue 

 and red, in all shades, 1-12 or 14 in. across ; sepals 4; 

 petals and carpels many; stamens very numerous; pis- 

 til with a broad cup-like depression in the center of the 

 fl., surrounded by a ring of fleshy processes, the car- 

 pellary styles, and with a knob at the center. 



The petals and stamens of Nymphaea appear to be at- 

 tached to the sides of the ovary; but this surface is to 

 be considered as the outside of a cup-like receptacle, its 

 cavity being completely filled by the radially placed car- 

 pels, with whose backs it is fused. Several species show 

 easy gradations from sepal to petal and from petal to 

 stamen, thus illustrating the homology of floral parts. 

 The peduncles and petioles are traversed by a number 

 of longitudinal air-canals, from whose walls star-shaped 

 cells and rounded cell-groups project inward; in the 

 walls of these stellate internal hairs are imbedded num- 

 berless minute crystals of calcium oxalate ; they are 

 objects of great beauty in microscopical sections. The 

 distribution of these, as also of the air-canals, differs 

 in different species. Three types of leaf may be dis- 

 tinguished: (1) very thin and fragile submerged leaves 

 on short petioles; (2) floating leaves, thicker in texture, 

 with storaata and palisade cells on the upper surface 

 only; (3) aerial leaves, leathery in texture, sometimes, 

 at least, bearing stomata on the under surface. 



The leaves come from the rhizomes in spiral orders 

 of varying complexity, from two-fifths up; the growing 

 apex of the stem is protected by the colorless stipules 

 and a dense growth of long, fine hairs. The roots spring 

 usually from the bases of the leaves. Flowers are extra- 

 axillary, arising as members of the leaf spirals or in a 

 spiral of their own. The rhizomes of species which 

 dry off in the resting season (Lotos, Hydrocallis, Lyto- 

 pleura) become protected by a strong corky bark; others 

 remain continually in a state of more or less active 

 growth. 



Habits of Opening. The flowers of every species 

 open and close at a particular time each day, so that in 

 a pond with 18 or 20 kinds there is some change taking 

 place at almost all hours. The hours of blooming are 

 quite regular, though the tropical species are more 

 sluggish in cool weather, and the hardy ones are irregu- 

 lar in very hot times. Each flower opens in from one 

 or two to five or seven successive days (or nights), be- 

 ing about an hour later to open and an hour earlier to 

 close on its first than on subsequent days. The flower 

 then goes down into the water by a spiral coiling of the 

 peduncle (or simply bending over if in shallow water) 

 where the seed ripens. When in 6 to 10 weeks the pod 

 matures and bursts, the seeds rise to the water-surface 

 and float for several hours by means of a buoyant aril; 

 this finally decays and drops the seed at some distance 

 from the parent. To secure these, the floating seeds 

 may be dipped up in a wire sieve, or better, the pods 

 may be inclosed in muslin or cheese-cloth bags before 

 ripening, all of the seeds being thus secured. 



The Hybrids. The species of a single group hybrid- 

 ize quite readily among themselves, and in the Lotos 

 group the hybrids are more or less fertile. By means 

 of this condition all shades of color have been obtained, 

 from the pure white N. Lotus, var. dentata, to the dark 

 crimson-red N. rubra. In this group and in Castalia, 

 varieties have so multiplied of late and fanciful names 



have been so freely given that an accurate classification 

 of all of them is no longer possible. In the Brachyceras 

 group, hybrids occur almost certainly if N. Zanzibar- 

 iensis is grown in the same pond with others of the 

 group; thus have originated some very fine varieties. 

 Outside of single groups only Castalia and Xanthantha 

 have yet been interbred. Between the apocarpous and 

 syncarpous species, the writer ventures to suggest, a 

 hybrid would be impossible. Authorities differ as to 

 the best time to transfer pollen; certain it is that the 

 flowers are pistillate on the first day of opening, the 

 pollen being shed on succeeding days, or late on the 

 first day. Some say that pollination should take place 

 in the early morning hours, about daybreak ; others 

 consider the time most favorable just as the flower is 

 closing for its first time. 



Trouble with the Names. Great confusion has existed 

 from the beginning in the naming alike scientific and 

 popular of certain species of Nymphsea, partly from 

 carelessness, partly because of the great variability of 

 some species. A good degree of order was introduced 

 by Caspary, though he left the matter still incomplete. 

 N. ccerulea, minutely described by Savigny, from 

 Egypt, in 1802 (Ann. Mus. Paris. I p. 366 ff.), was im- 

 mediately confused with N. Capensis, of South Africa, 

 by the editor of B.M. and several other writers. It was 

 also confounded with the very similar N. stellata, of 

 India. Caspary, in Bot. Zeit. 1877, p. 200, finally set 

 the matter straight, though American gardens are as yet 

 not all corrected. N. ampla and N. Amazonum were 

 confused because De Candolle's original specimen of N. 

 ampla consists of a leaf of the first, with a flower of the 

 second species; and N. Amazonum has been distrib- 

 uted in this country under the wrong name. Both are 

 fully described by Caspary in Martius' Flora Brasilien- 

 sis (Fasciculus 77). N. blanda of our gardens is prob- 

 ably a form of N. tuberosa. The term N. blanda was 

 first used by G. F. W. Meyer (1818) in a most faulty de- 

 scription of a member of the Hydrocallis group. The 

 name was attached also to two other species of this 

 group by later writers. See full description and syno- 

 nymy in Fl. Brasil., 1. c. 



The True Egyptian Lotus. Among common names 

 the term "Lotus" has been remarkably misapplied. 

 It seems to be consistently used among us for the genus 

 Nelumbo, Nelumbo nucifera being generally styled 

 "Egyptian" or "Sacred Lotus." Historically this is 

 entirely wrong. Nelumbo is not native in Egypt, and is 

 not now found there in a wild state. It was cultivated 

 extensively along the Nile in the Roman period, prob- 

 ably for food, and the flower is supposed to have fur- 

 nished one form of capital of the Egyptian columns. It 

 is a native of southeastern Asia; is found near temples 

 and carved on the walls of cave-temples in Hindustan, 

 showing a veneration, which it shares, however, with 

 Nymphcea stellata, rubra and Lotus. Nelumbo seems 

 to have been regarded as sacred about temples in Japan 

 and China. In Egypt, however, Nymphcea ccerulea and 

 N. Lotus, the "blue lotus " and "white lotus," are indige- 

 nous. The root (rhizome) of the former is said to have 

 been pointed out as edible by Isis or by Menes; its 

 flowers, buds and leaves are often depicted on the monu- 

 ments, the first sometimes in color. The flowers are 

 figured among offerings under the IV. dynasty (3998- 

 3721 B.C.), and the plant is certainly known from the 

 V. dynasty. Petals of this and of N. Lotus were found 

 in the tomb of Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the Israelitish 

 captivity. N.Lotus was less regarded than N. ccerulea 

 in Egypt, though an object of profound veneration in 

 India. Herodotus and other ancient writers speak of 

 these Water-lilies indiscriminately as the "lotos" of the 

 Egyptians. With these facts, and the additional one 

 that, except as referred to above, Nelumbo never appears 

 in Egyptian carvings, the identity of the sacred lotus 

 cannot be doubted. But the erroneous use of the word 

 lotus is deeply rooted, and may never be supplanted. 

 Personally, the undersigned would not attempt to up- 

 root it, but only to remember that the so-called "Egyp- 

 tian Lotus " is not the plant of the tombs and monuments. 

 (The lotus of Tennyson's poem, "Lotus Eaters,'' is still 

 another plant, a shrub or tree which hangs out over the 

 water; and the genus Lotus (q. v.) is distinct from all 

 these.) 



