98 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Water Liily Family 



N y m p h a c a c e a c 

 Large Yellow Pond Lily; Spatter-dock 



XyiJ![)l!iu'a advcini Solander 



Plato s6 



Floating and emersed leaves 5 to 12 inches long and 5 to 9 inches 

 broad, ovate or orbicular-oval, thick, with a sinus 2 to 5 inches deep and 

 generally open; subnierged leaves, when present, thin and membranous; 

 petioles, peduncles and lower surfaces of the leaves usually pubescent. 

 Flowers i§ to 2h inches broad, depressed, globose, yellow, usually tinged 

 with purple within; sepals six, oblong; petals fleshy, oblong truncate, one- 

 half to two-thirds of an inch long; stamens numerous in five to seven rows; 

 carpels numerous, united into a compound pistil which is surmounted by 

 an undulate, yellow or pale-red stigmatic disc with twelve to twenty-four 

 rays, ripening into an ovoid, berrylike fruit, i to 2 inches long and about 

 I inch thick, maintained at the surface of the water or above it. 



In ponds, lakes, slow streams or often subterrestrial in boggy meadows, 

 Labrador and Nova Scotia to the Rocky mountains, south to Florida, Texas 

 and Utah. Flowering from May to September. Consists of several races 

 or perhaps species, differing in the character of the pistil, stigmatic disc 

 and leaf outline. In the lakes and ponds throughout the north the small 

 Yellow Pond Lily (Nyniphaea microphylla Persoon) is also 

 found, with flowers i inch broad or less, and small leaves 2 to 4 inches long 

 and I to 3 inches broad. The northern form of the larger Yellow Pond 

 Lily is described in some books under the name of Nymph aea vari- 

 e g a t a (Morong) Greene, and a hybrid between the two, Nymph aea 

 r u b r o d i s c a (Morong) Greene, is of frequent occurrence, having fewer 

 stigmatic rays than N. v a r i e g a t a and spatulate petals. Our illustra- 

 tion is from a plant on Long Island. 



