|
The flowering aquatic plants to which most of us refer
collectively as water-lilies were among the first splashes of beauty that
man noticed on this earth. Earlier plant forms there were in profusion,
but the process of evolution seems to have favored water-lilies with quick
development to their ultimate form. Remains of tropical water-lilies have
been found in pre-Ice Age stratas in Europe, and these remains show the
early types to have been of the same basic form that persists among tropical
species today.
The dimmest beginnings of art and writing include the water-lily as well
as closely related members of the botanical family. To the furled sepals
of the lotus bud, historians trace the design of the Ionic capital and
the basic pattern of the Greek fret or meander. Doubled, the meander forms
the swastika, certainly one of man's earliest written symbols, representing
good and evil in one part of the world, darkness and light in another,
life and death, male and female, peace and conflict to the peoples of
the world. The cornucopia, that universal and ancient symbol of fertility
and abundance, is thought by some scholars to have been derived from the
filled-to-bursting seed pods of the lotus, which it resembles.
The family tree of the water-lilies is confusing, made so principally
by a score of early plant anatomists, horticulturists, and botanists,
each of whom bent it this way and that to satisfy his personal bias in
classification.
DIVISION, CLASS, AND ORDER
The basic lineage of water-lilies is fairly obvious, however. In the
four great divisions of the vegetable kingdom, they fall under the largest
of all-Spermatophyta, the flowering plants, and then into one of the
two subdivisions-the Angiospermae, plants that reproduce through seeds
fertilized within a closed ovary.
Under one of two classes encompassed by the subdivision, waterlilies
are listed with the Dicotyledoneae, plants whose sprouting seeds are
fed by food stored in two fleshy, leaflike appendages or cotyledons.
Further, in a subclass of the Dicotyledoneae, they are listed with the
Archichlamydeae-flowering plants which bear their petals separately.
Then they fall into the order of Ranales, a classification based on
the manner of placement of the petals on the stem. Other plant families
in this order are buttercups and magnolias, whose blooms to the imaginative
observer show a certain structural resemblance to those of waterlilies.
FAMILY, GENUS, AND SECTIONS
Under Ranales, the family in which we are interested
principally, is the Nymphaeaceae-the Water-Lily Family. The varied genera
which spring from Nymphaeaceae include almost all the flowering aquatic
plants which have ever been called water-lily or lotus. From this point
on in the classification system, we no longer speak of all water flowers
as water-lilies.
One inferior genus of the family is called Nuphar, plants commonly known
as cow lilies, spatter docks, and yellow pond lilies. Another genus
is Victoria, the most regal and spectacular of all flowering aquatics.
Another is Nelumbo, from which springs the lotus species.
We shall discuss all of the genera later. At the moment, let us consider
the most colorful and varied of all genera in the Water-Lily Family,
the genus called Nymphaea. To it belong all of the true water-lilies.
Nymphaea are divided into two general sections, under which five important
subgenera are listed. The groupings are based largely on structural
differences in the blossoms and on habits of growth and bloom. In this
book we are not concerned with minute botanical differences, but blooming
habits are important to us.
The first section, the Apocarpiae, includes the subgenera Anecphya and
Brachyceras. These are the tender or tropical water-lilies that bloom
in the daytime.
The second section, Syncarpiae, includes the other three subgenera -Castalia,
Lotos, and Hydrocallis. The Castalia are the hardy waterlilies. The
other two are the tropical water-lilies that bloom at night. Water-lilies
that spring from the subgenus Lotos are not to be confused with flowers
of the genus Nelumbo, the basic form of which is the Hindu or Sacred
Lotus of India, the true lotus. The situation becomes even more complex
when a water-lily species called lotus (from which many varieties have
been obtained) is attributed to the subgenus Lotos. It may help to think
of the water-lily species called lotus, and of the varieties obtained
from it, as lotus-like water-lilies.
|