Untitled - Seerosenforum

Historical. 21tus. He considered the word Nenuphar a corruption of the older Greeknouphar. But his description of the European waterlilyis the valuablefeature. The leaves, he says, are on long, terete, glabrous, porouspeduncles, are approximately round, firm, almost coriaceous, for the mostpart floating on the water ;upper surface smooth, distinctly veinedbeneath. Those which lie concealed below the water are thinner andsofter. Flowers solitary,on stems like the petioles, made of many floralleaves, so that sometimes a single flower iscomposed of twenty-five tothirty or even forty leaves, each of the shape of one's thumb or a leaf ofthe greater Sedum. From the middle of the flower many yellow stamensproject.Bud oblong,its outer leaves [sepals] purplish green. Flowersscentless, shining like the sun. Here, curiously enough, reappears theat sunrise.myth of its retreat below the water at evening and emergenceThe account continues : After the flower, there isproduced a head like apoppy or round apple, with black shining seed, larger than millet. Therhizome {radix)is about as thick as one's arm, knotty, black outside, whiteand spongy within, odorless, tasteless, beset with and fastened in themud by fibrous roots. Bodaeus calls this plant " Nymphaea alba major."Two other varieties of " N. alba" and four of " N. lutea " are next described,but they are all outside our present genus Nymphaea and neednot be considered here. At another place Nymphaealotus is fully treatedunder the name of " Lotus Aegyptia," givingall of Alpinus' figures.Bodaeus thinks this plant should not be classed with Nymphaea on accountof its bulbous root. He thus differs in opinion from Alpinus, and especiallyfrom C. Bauhin.Piso (1648) gives us the earliest account of an American Nymphaea,in a Brazilian species. " Among those plants," he says, " which arecommon to Europe and the western world is Nymphaea, called by theBrazilians Aguape, by the Portuguese Galvaon, which is noticed everywherefloating on the surface of pools and still waters. The leaves are similarto our Nymphaea, with a great network of veins beneath." The flowerhas a pleasant odor, and consists of four green sepals and about twelvenarrowly oblong, acute, white petals. Its medicinal virtues are alsodetailed. Just what species is here referred to cannot be positivelyidentified, nor does the crude figure accompanying assist. But from thecharacter and number of the petals, and the fact that we know of but onewhite day-blooming waterlily in Brazil, we have but little hesitation inreferring it, as did Caspary (1878), to N. ampla DC.Bontius, whose accounts of the East Indies were bound in with Piso's