STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
exquisite buds and half unfolded blossoms that are spring- 
ing upwards to the air and sunlight. 
The hollow boat-shaped sepals of the calyx are four in 
number, of a bright olive green, smooth and oily in texture. 
The flowers do not expand fully until they reach the sur- 
face. The petals are numerous, hollow (or concave), blunt, 
of a pure ivory white, very fragrant, having the rich odor 
of freshly-cut lemons; they are set round the surface of 
the ovary in regular rows, one above the other, gradually 
lessening in size till they change, by imperceptible grada- 
tion, into the narrow fleshy petal-like yellow anthers. The 
pistil is without style, the stigma forming a flat-rayed top 
to the ovary, as in the Poppy and many other plants. 
But if the White Water-lily is beautiful, how much more 
so is the lovely pink-flowered variety, N. odorata, var. rosea, 
found abundantly in many of the small lakes in the northern 
counties of Ontario, particularly in the Muskoka district, of 
such an exquisite shade of color that it could be compared 
only with the 
‘* Hues of the rich unfolding morn, 
That ere the glorious sun be born, 
By some soft touch invisible 
Around his path are taught to swell.” 
—Keble. 
On the approach of night our lovely water-nymph 
gradually closes her petals and slowly retires to rest in 
her watery bed, to rise again the following day to court the 
warmth and light so necessary for the perfection of the 
embryo seeds; and this continues till the fertilization of 
the germ has been completed, when the petals shrink and 
wither and the seed-vessel sinks down to the bottom of the 
water, where the seeds ripen in its secret chambers. Thus 
silently and mysteriously does Nature perform her wonder- 
8&8 
