THE YELLOW WATER-LILY— continued. 
The globular fruit is more flask-shaped than that of Nymph^ea, and its popular 
name IVater-can recalls the fact that among ancient Romano-British pottery we 
have watering-pots with the rose at the top, apparently antedating those in which it 
has travelled round to the side, as in our modern metal vessels. These fruits do 
not rot under water as do those of the White Water-lily, but break off, float to the 
surface, and then break up into their constituent carpels. The contained seeds have 
no aril as have those of Nymph^ea ; but, whilst the carpels are floated by means of 
air secreted in cavities in their pericarps, the seeds sink immediately they are 
liberated by the decay of the carpel that encloses them. 
There is a considerable amount of tannic acid in the plant, especially in the 
rhizome and leaves, so that it has been employed as an astringent in dysentery, 
haemorrhage, etc. An infusion of the rhizome in milk is stated to be fatal to 
cockroaches ; and the flowers with their alcoholic perfume are used by the Turks in 
the preparation of a sherbet-like cooling drink, which, by a corruption of the 
Arabic name Nuphar, is known as Pufer. 
Our common species occurs more generally than the White Water-lily, and 
grows, perhaps, more freely in the stagnant and muddy waters of ponds. Thus 
whilst Nymphiea alba is known to the Germans as Seerose^ or Lake Rose, Nuphar 
luteum is termed Teichrose^ or Pond Rose. 
In the common species, which is generally distributed throughout the British 
Isles, the flowers are from two to three inches across. A smaller species, Nuphar 
pumilum Smith, occurs at Ellesmere in Shropshire and in various small lakes in 
Scotland, where it was first recorded by Borrer in i8ii, from the foot of Ben 
Chonachan. It has small flowers, with short anthers and only eight to ten stigmatic 
rays, which extending to the margin give a toothed edge to the stigmatic disk. 
Another small form, described as Nuphar intermedium Ledebour, with flowers 
about an inch and a half across, from ten to fourteen stigmatic rays, and a wavy 
margin to the disk as in N. pumilum^ has been described from one or two localities in 
the North of England and in Scotland, as well as on the Continent ; but it is stated 
on apparently good grounds to be a hybrid of the other two, perhaps a seedling of 
N. pumilum pollinated by N. luteum^ so that it has been re-named N. luteo-pumilum 
Caspary. 
