28 PLANTS GROWING IN WATER. 



reason to believe that nature has compensated it by bestowing 

 the virtue of goodness. It has caused disappointment to many 

 a young seeker that, allured from afar by the brightness of its 

 colouring, has sighed to find it without charm or fragrance on 

 a nearer acquaintance. The initiated have learned to bow 

 politely to this flower and to pass on ; leaving it to the insects 

 to be entrapped within its crimson centre. 



It is almost impossible not to fancy that the pure white 

 water-lily exhales a sigh at the uncultivated preference of this 

 member of its family for stagnant water. In England their 

 rather suggestive odour has caused them to be called by the 

 country people, " brandy bottles." 



YELLOW NELUMBO. SACRED BEAN. WATER 

 CHINQUEPIN. (Plate IV.) 



Nelumbo lit tea. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Water-lily. Yellow. Scentless. Middle states, -west and south. July^ August. 



Flowers: one to five inches in diameter; growing singly on long, naked 

 scapes. Calyx and Corolla: appear like those of the " white water-lily. 

 Stamens: numerous. Pistils: numerous and hidden in a concave receptacle. 

 Leaves : twenty inches in diameter ; growing well out of the water, or floating; 

 peltate ; veined. Rootstock : thick ; tuberous. 



Of all the family the nelumbo has the most interesting and 

 careful manner of growing its fruit. Evidently it has de- 

 termined upon giving the seeds every advantage. The recep- 

 tacle is enlarged into a flat, top-shaped body, in which the 

 pistils are systematically sunken. Here the ovaries grow into 

 one-seeded nuts that are about the size of chinquepins. They 

 and the tubers are quite edible. 



The flowers of the native plant are always pale yellow. 

 The gorgeous, showy, pink and white variety is the introduced 

 plant and the one that should properly be called sacred bean. 



It is this flower that the old Egyptians dedicated to Osiris, 

 the god of life and light, and it was from the shape of its seed 

 vessels that they originated cornucopias. The seeds were sown 

 by enclosing them first in clay and then throwing them in the 



