122 NYMPHAEA FLAVA.—AUDUBON'S YELLOW WATER-LILY. 
northern seas to Hudson’s Bay, remaining till October, when 
they go south to more congenial climes. Large numbers 
reach the Chesapeake Bay, where they find a favorite food in the 
Vallisnerta spiralis, known to sportsmen as “wild celery;” and 
when the season arrives for leaving this location they then cross 
the continent to the Columbia River and the shores of the 
Pacific Ocean, on their way back to their Arctic home. Audubon 
says they have never been seen beyond Cape Hatteras, in North 
Carolina. As this water-lily has not been found in the waters 
frequented by this swan, it is not surprising that botanists 
regarded Audubon’s lily as a mere creation of the artist’s fancy. 
Leitner, however, is said to have been a young German botanist 
who collected in Florida, and was killed there by the Indians. 
There, therefore, still remained the probability that Audubon 
had taken a drawing of Leitner’s to assist his swan without a 
thought of the geographical incongruity, and the giving of Leit- 
ner’s name, Nymphea flava, supports this supposition. Mrs. 
Treat’s discovery of this lily, in Florida, shows that Leitner may 
have seen it there, though her plant differs from that pictured 
in Audubon’s work. In this drawing the leaves are ovate- 
oblong, and the lobes are rounded at the base, of a clear uniform 
green without spots, and the yellow of the flowers is very light. 
Mrs. Treat’s plant differs, as we see by our picture, and only the 
belief that it must have been the plant intended by Leitner 
entitles him to the retention of the name he gave it. 
In “Harper’s Magazine,” as already cited, Mrs. Treat pro- 
poses for it the name of Nymphaea lutea; but this brings to 
mind that Linnzus classed what we now call Nuphar, or as it is 
commonly called along the Delaware, the “splatter-dock,” with 
the true Nympheas; and that one, now Nuphar-lutea, was Nym- 
phea lutea then. It is true that in botany a name rejected may 
be taken up again for another species, but in such a case as this 
it would lead to confusion with a synonym,—an evil botanists 
endeavor to avoid. It may be remarked here that there is no 
great difference between Muphar and Nymphaea, except in 
