Yellow Water-lily (Nuphar luteum).
In some districts, where the Yellow Water-lily floats on the bosom of ponds and sluggish streams, it is known as the Brandy-bottle, partly by reason of its unpleasant odour and partly on account of its flagon-like seed-vessel.
It has a thick fleshy rootstock, which creeps in the mud, and is rich in tannic acid; it is said to be a fatal lure to cockroaches if bruised and soaked in milk. Some of the leaves are submerged, and these are thin, but the floating ones are thick and leathery. The leaves are heart-shaped, the lobes not far apart; the stalks somewhat triangular in section, and traversed by a great number of fine air-canals, as are the flower-stalks also. The most conspicuous portion of the flower is the sepals, five or six in number, which are very large and concave. The petals are much smaller, and number about twenty; they produce honey at their base. The stamens are even more numerous than the petals, in several rows, their blunt tips bent over away from the many-celled ovary. The stigma is rayed. The fruit ripens above water, and is, as we have indicated, flagon-shaped; the seeds are imbedded in pulp. Flowers from June till August.
There is another species:—
The Lesser Yellow Water-lily (N. pumilum), which occurs in Shropshire and in Scotland, from Elgin to Argyll, but it is rare. Its oblong leaves are divided at the base, the lobes becoming distant from each other. The petals are rounder than in luteum, the anthers shorter, and the rays of the stigma reach to the margin, which is lobed.
The name is from the Arabic for this or a similar plant, naufar.
The White Water-lily (Nymphæa alba), though constituting the British representative of a distinct genus, is closely allied, as, indeed, is the magnificent Victoria regia of South American rivers, with leaves 10 or 12 feet across, and flowers 15 inches and more in diameter.
Wild Teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris).
We have explained (page 98) in what respect the Scabious differs from the somewhat similar flowers of Compositæ, and to a considerable extent that explanation will hold good for the genus Dipsacus, which is united to Scabiosa in the Natural Order Dipsaceæ. There is this difference, however: in Dipsacus the flower-bracts end in long, straight, sharp points, and the involucel is four-angled. There are two British species:—
I. Wild Teasel (D. sylvestris). A striking object in copse or hedgerow; its stout, angular and spiny stems rising to a height of 4 or 5 feet, and crowned by the prickly-cylindrical heads of flowers. These heads have an involucre, consisting of from eight to twelve slender rigid bracts, spiny, longer than the flower-head, curved upward and ending in a fine point. The corolla is purple, tubular, with four short unequal lobes. It is a biennial plant, and only has radical leaves during its first year, sending up the flowering stem the second season. These are stalked, lance-shaped, with a stout mid-rib, which is armed with short curved spines. The stem-leaves are opposite, not stalked, the lower couples joined together by their bases, thus forming a large cup, in which rain collects and drowns many insects that attempt to ascend the tall stem. Flowers August and September. The Fuller’s Teasel (D. fullonum), of so great importance to the cloth manufacturer, is believed to be a cultivated variety of sylvestris, having the involucral bracts shorter and spreading, and the scales of the flower-heads hooked.
II. Small Teasel (D. pilosus). This is a more slender plant, the stem not so tall or stout, and the prickles ending in soft hair-points. Leaves stalked, hairy. Flower-heads at first drooping, then erect; smaller, rounder, hairy, the involucral bracts shorter than the head. Flowers white. August and September, in moist hedges; not so generally distributed as sylvestris.
