Family

Water-lily,

Colour

Yellow, centre tinged with crimson.'

Odour

Unpleasant.

Range

General.

Time Of Bloom

May-August.

Flowers: unattractive; solitary. Calyx: of six to eight unequal sepals that vary in colour from yellow to green. Corolla: of coarse, fleshy petals that are shorter than the stamens. Stamens: numerous. Pistil: one, the stigma spreading like a many-rayed disk. Leaves: rising out of the water and having a deep space between the rounded lobes.

The yellow pond-lily is not pretty, and we have no especial reason to believe that nature has compensated it by bestowing the virtue of goodness. It has caused disappointment to many a young seeker that, allured from afar by the brightness of its colouring, has sighed to find it without charm or fragrance on a nearer acquaintance. The initiated have learned to bow politely to this flower and to pass on; leaving it to the insects to be entrapped within its crimson centre.

Stamen.

Seed Vessel.

It is almost impossible not to fancy that the pure white water-lily exhales a sigh at the uncultivated preference of this member of its family for stagnant water. In England their rather suggestive odour has caused them to be called by the country people, "brandy bottles."