NYMPH-EA ODORATA.—SWEET-SCENTED WATER-LILY. 135 
well as by Theophrastus and Dioscorides, two of the earliest 
Greek writers extant. This ancient water-lily of the Greeks, 
which they named Mymphaia leuca, still grows where they saw 
it, in the lakes and ponds of Thessaly, and is the Mymphea alba 
of modern botany. Our species, Mymuphea odorata, differs 
from this one of the ancients and of the old world chiefly in 
the size and fragrance of the flowers. The earlier botanists 
supposed it to be the same species, and Gronovius speaks of it 
as the Vywphea alba, with “ full and sweet flowers;” and Wilde- 
now, though recognizing Aiton’s name of WV. odorata, remarks 
that “it is different only in size,” which is not strictly correct, as 
there are usually a greater number of stigmatic rays, more 
strongly nerved leaves, and some other slight differences. 
Torrey and Gray regard XV. reniformis of Walter, and NV. menor 
of Decandolle, as good varieties; and Rafinesque gives others, 
as parviflora, rubella, and chlortza (yellow root). Besides the 
variations in the leaves and roots, there are shades of colors in 
the flowers. It is not in every case that 
“The water-lily to the night, 
Her chalice rears of silver light,” 
as Sir Walter Scott would say; for varieties of a deep-rose as 
well as silver are often met with, an illustration of which we have 
given in the upper flower of our plate. The leaves and sepals 
are often tinged with red, even in the pure white petaled flowers, 
so that the transition of the whole flower to a deeper color is one 
that might be expected. Rafinesque writes of the rosy-flowered 
kind as if it were common in “ New York and Ohio,” and says 
it is not as odorous as the white kind. Of special locations for 
the rose-colored forms Cape Cod and Falmouth, Mass., are 
among the best known. 
The fact that our “white sweet pond-lily” often comes with 
rose-colored flowers, so long recognized here, does not seem to 
be known to the cultivators of flowers in Europe, as the recent 
discovery of a rosy variety of the European white species in a 
