THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



Vol. I. August, ujor. No. 2. 



THE WOODSTOWN LILIES. 

 By Edwin C. Jellett. 



Perhaps one of the most beautiful — certainly one of the 

 most striking of our native plants — is the American Nelumbo 

 (N. lulca), locally known to plant lovers as the Woodstown lily. 

 About this time of the year, one living- in Eastern Pennsylvania 

 or in Western New Jersey, is apt to see an announcement that the 

 rare Woodstown lilies are preparing to bloom, or else may read 

 that a party of enthusiastic botanists, upon a day's outing, has 

 appeared at Woodstown to collect the rarest of American wild 

 flowers, as it is believed by many that the Woodstown mill-dam 

 is the only spot where the plant is to be found. Indeed if a re- 

 porter who is anxious to fill his paper with an account of some- 

 thing new and strange, does exaggerate a little, and if on seeing 

 the notice, an eager flower gatherer, without consulting his 

 book, starts at once for the home of the wonder rare, bent on 

 securing a few of its blooms before it be too late, I shall not 

 blame ; for independent of the lilies and the mystery of their loca- 

 tion, the "Woodstown mill-dam" is a most inviting place, and the 

 country about it is a paradise for botanical students and collectors. 



Picture a beautiful pond, and at one corner of it an old- 

 fashioned mill, with near-by, a high stone breast, over which the 

 water surges until it rises in spray from a rocky pool below, while 

 above, a line of weeping-willow trees almost hides the falls and 

 the mill from view. Where the water narrows a single-span wood 

 bridge crosses, from which one may follow the whitened waters 

 tumbling down the ravine until lost to sight, or turning, may, 

 at the far away end of the upper dam, see an interminable number 



