NYMPHAEA FLAVA. 
AUDUBON'S YELLOW WATER-LILY. 
NATURAL ORDER, NYMPHACES. 
NyMPu-£A FLAVA, Leitner.—Root-stock erect. Leaves ovate-orbicular, spotted, lobes sharp- 
pointed. Flowers, yellow. (Mrs. Mary Treat, in Harger’s Magazine, vol. 55, p. 365.) 
41N Thomas Moore's delicious poem, Lalla Rookh, he tells 
us of 
“ Those virgin lilies all the night 
Bathing their beauties in the lake, 
That they may rise more fresh and bright 
When their beloved Sun’s awake.” 
This is in allusion to the well-known fact that the flowers 
of the water-lily open early in the morning about sunrise, 
and close before the evening time. But if we carry the 
imagery further than the poet intended, we may say of the 
present species that it has been bathing its beauty in a very long 
night in the Florida lakes, for only recently have we had any 
certain knowledge of its existence, and this through the keen 
investigations of a noted botanist, Mrs. Mary Treat, of Vine- 
land, New Jersey, who gave us the first detailed account of it in 
the number of “Harper’s Magazine” above cited. Botanists, 
however, were made partially acquainted with it through a colored 
drawing in Audubon’s “Birds of America,” published in 1843. 
In his picture No, 411 he represents a swan, Cyguus Americanus, 
swimming among a lot of yellow water-lilies, which he calls 
“Nymphaea flava, Leitner.” This swan is an Arctic bird. 
About the middle of September flocks come down from the 
