36 
FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
surface. The var. rubra (see Plate 16) has red or rose-tinted flowers. The 
species is a native of the Old World tropics, and requires stove treatment. 
N. odorata (sweet-scented) is very similar in proportions, colour, 
and appearance to N. alba, yet quite distinct It opens in the morning 
and exhales its delicious perfume, but closes its rose-tinged petals 
soon after midday. Hardy. 
N. scutifolia (shield-leaved). A blue fragrant-flowered species, 
with peltate toothed leaves, smooth on both sidea Stove. Cape of 
Good Hope (1792). 
N. STELLATA (starry). Blue, fragrant, similar to scutifolia, but 
distinguished by its smaller size and few petals. Stove. There are 
several varieties of this species; one ( versicolor ) opens with white flowers, 
which afterwards change to red. 
N. zanzibarensis (Zanzibar) is the largest and handsomest of all 
the Stellata group, having flowers 9 inches in diameter and coloured rich * 
blue-purple. It was introduced to Kew by Sir John Kirk in 1880. 
A number of beautiful hybrids, all of them hardy, have recently 
been raised by a French nurseryman, Marliac, among them being yellow, 
pink, and crimson flowered sorta These are certain to become popular 
wherever Water-lilies are grown. The best of them are ignea, Robinson - 
iana, camea, rosea, chromatella, and Laydekeri. 
cultivation. T ^ e stove species should be potted, or placed in tubs, 
the hardy sorts placed in wicker baskets, and both should 
be sunk until the crowns are about a foot below the surface of the water. 
The soil should be a compost of turfy loam and sharp sand with an 
admixture of well-rotted manure. The hardy species will soon send 
their roots through the basket and into the bottom of the lake or pond, 
thereafter needing little attention. The stove species require to have 
their water maintained at a temperature of 70° Fahrenheit, though this 
may be reduced to 60° after the leaves have ripened. The tubers of the 
tropical kinds should be repotted in February. If not convenient to keep 
them in water all winter, they should be taken out of the soil in November 
and kept in moist sand in a warm house. Propagation is effected by divid¬ 
ing the rootstock, and by sowing seed in spring. The seed-pot should be 
submerged in the stove-tank,where germination takes place rapidly,and the 
young plants come on so well that they will probably flower the same year. 
Nuphar (Arabic, naufar) is a closely allied genus containing three 
or four species of Water-lilies, distinguished from Nymphcea by their 
always yellow globose flowers with five or six large coloured sepals ana 
small numerous petals, and by the stigma having lobed margins. They 
are natives of the north temperate zone. 
