STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 



flowers instead of the harsh-sounding, unmeaning ones that 

 we find in our scientific manuals of Botany. So we have 

 among our local and familiar names such prettily sound- 

 ing ones as " Lady 's-tr esses," " Sweet Cicely," " Sweet 

 Marjoram," or " Marjory," " Mary-gold," " Lady's-slipper," 

 with a number of others that I could name besides descrip- 

 tive names which form a sort of biography of the plant, 

 giving us a correct idea of its characteristics and peculiar 

 uses or habits. 



SWEET SCENTED WATER-LILY Nymphcea odorata (Ait). 



(PLATE XV.) 



" Rocked gently there, the beautiful Nymphaea 

 Pillows her bright head." 



Calendar of Flowers. 



Water-lily is the popular name by which this beautiful 

 aquatic plant is known, nor can we find it in our hearts to 

 reject the name of Lily for this ornament of our lakes. 

 The White Nymphsea might indeed be termed " Queen of the 

 Lakes," for truly she sits in regal pride upon her watery 

 throne, a very queen among flowers. Very lovely are the 

 Water-lilies of England, but their fair sisters of the New 

 World excel them in size and fragrance. 



Many of the tribe to which these plants belong are natives 

 of the Torrid Zone, but our White Water-lilies (Nymphcea 

 odorata and tuberosa] and the Yellow Pond-lilies (Nuphar 

 udvendj lutea and Kalmiana) only are able to support the 

 cold winters of Canada. The depth of the water in which 

 they grow enables them to withstand the cold, the frost 

 rarely penetrating to their roots, which in the Nymphseas 

 are rough and knotted, white and fleshy, and often as thick 

 as a man's wrist. The root-stock is horizontal, sending 

 many fibrous slender rootlets into the soft mud; the stems 



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