Beautiful water-lilies are not lilies in the botanical sense of the word. They belong to two closely related geni, Nymphaea (the flowers of virgin nymphs!), and Nuphar, after a Greek name for the yellow pond-lily. In fact until very recently, the botanists thought there was just one species in the whole Nuphar genus, the common European yellow Nuphar lutea. These days they tend to agree that American yellow water-lilies belong to a number of distinct species ... they just can't decide exactly how many species!

There is a number of beautiful photographs of Nymphaeceae on SP already, but so few pictures captured the mountains reflecting amidst the water lilies! We are definitely looking for more pictures to add.

Images

Waterlily Nymphaea alba

Water Lilies, Scudder Lake

Water Lilies in the rain

Waterlily Nymphaea alba

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Marcsoltan

Have always been fascinated

Voted 10/10

by water Lilies.

Thank you for the album.

Posted Oct 13, 2008 11:49 pm


	GeoPooch Sobachka	Re: Have always been fascinated
	Hasn't voted	Thanks Marc. Of course water lilies are usually the stuff of sleepy stillwater lowlands ... but they are beauiful in the mountains too, sometimes. I wanted to quote a WWII verse from Ilya Ehrenburg about the suicidal mountain torrent of times, which will, only much later, quiet down into the sleepy stagnant ponds, but couldn't find any English translation. That's the poet of the Green Eyes of Spring fame How can the folk in tropics dwelling, Where roses in December grow, Where people hardly know the spelling Of words like ``blizzard'' and "ice floe'', Where ever azure, ever pleasant, Above them sails a silken sky, Since time primordial to the present, The selfsame summer soothes the eye. How can they even for a twinkling, In slumber, or in daydream learn, How can they have the slightest inkling Of what it means for spring to yearn, Or how in freezing winter vainly, When dour despondency holds sway, To wait and wait until ungainly And massive ice gets under way. But we have known such wintry madness, Have learned such coldness to abide, No longer have we room for sadness But only misery and pride. With cold resentment in out being, When blizzards blinded everything, We pictured, without really seeing, The halcyon days of verdant spring. Translated by Eugene Felgenhauer
		Posted Oct 14, 2008 4:39 pm


	Marcsoltan	Re: Have always been fascinated
	Voted 10/10	Thank you Geo Pooch Sobachka for finding this lovely poem. I have a confession to make. The last time I went through a whole poem was probably thirty years ago, but I red this one twice. Marc
		Posted Oct 14, 2008 5:12 pm

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