Waterlilies are cosmopolitan, gracious aquatics of quiet waters. Depending upon the botanical authority, there are 35 to 50 species (some may be natural hybrids) in the genus, Nymphaea [nim fay' ee] and hundreds of named hybrids.
For horticultural purposes, waterlilies are classified as hardy—those that tolerate freezing—or tropical—those that grow year-round and will not tolerate the cold. Hardy waterlilies are usually diurnal, day-blooming, with white, yellow, pink or red flowers that float on the water's surface. Tropical waterlilies may be diurnal or nocturnal, night-blooming, and hold their flowers above the surface of the water. Tropicals have all the colors of the hardies and include blue like the famous Egyptian blue lotus, Nymphaea caerulea.
The generic, Nymphaea, is Latinized from the ancient Greek name for waterlilies, nymphaia, and inextricably linked with the nymphae, demigoddesses, the kindly daughters of Zeus believed to watch over the fate of mortals.
In 1902, Leonhard Schmitz wrote, "The early Greeks saw in all the phenomena of ordinary nature some manifestation of the deity; springs, rivers, grottoes, trees, and mountains, all seemed to them fraught with life; and all were only the visible embodiment of so many divine agents. The salutary and beneficent powers of nature were thus personified, and regarded as so many divinities; and the sensations produced on man in the contemplation of nature, such as awe, terror, joy, delight, were ascribed to the agency of the various divinities of nature....
"Many of these presided over waters or springs which were believed to inspire those that drank of them, and hence the nymphs themselves were thought to be endowed with prophetic or oracular power, and to inspire men with the same, and to confer upon them the gift of poetry....
"Their powers, however, vary with those of the springs over which they preside; some were thus regarded as having the power of restoring sick persons to health; and as water is necessary to feed all vegetation as well as all living beings, the water nymphs were worshipped along with Dionysus and Demeter as giving life and blessings to all created beings...."
One can almost see a gentle nymph dancing among the petals.
(Compiled from: "Nymphaea", Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, 1976; "Nymphaea", A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, C. Brickell and J.D. Zuk, eds., American Horticultural Society, Dorling Kindersley, 1996; and "Nymphae", L. Schmitz, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Vol. II, William Smith, ed., John Murray, London, 1902)
