Eastern Mojave Vegetation Nuphar polysepala Engelm. “Rocky Mountain Pond Lily”  
 

Edited by Tom Schweich  
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Topics in this Article:
Introduction
Taxonomic History
Literature Cited 		 About the Rocky Mountain Pond Lily

 

 

   

Introduction

 
 

  • 1 - Introduction
  • 2 - Taxonomic History
  • 3 - Materials and Methods
  • 4 - Morphology
  • 5 - Seed Dispersal, Dormancy, and Longevity
  • 6 - Chromosome Numbers
  • 7 - Distribution, Habitats, and Notes on Ecology
  • 8 - Phylogenetic Relationships
  • 9 - Taxonomy
  • 97 - Acknowledgements
  • 98 - Literature Cited
  • 99 - Appendix
 

I was on the road this past week, botanizing the subalpine zones of Lake County. One of my favorite places is Lily Lake between Leadville and Tennessee Pass. In theory a forest road goes there, but in practice it’s about a mile hike, and the Lily Lake Loop, a Pike San Isabel National Forest trail, passes by the lake.

Other articles:
• Field Notes:  Coll. No. 3355, 25 Jul 2024;

Locations: Lily Lake.
Full Size ImageColl. No. 3355, Nuphar polysepala.  

What’s at Lily Lake? The “Rocky Mountain Pond Lily” — Nuphar polysepala Engelm.

 

Water lilies do not occur in Golden. The closest ponds with water lilies are found around Eldora and Nederland in Boulder County.

 

Water lilies are part of a "primitive" group of flowering plants. By primitive, botanists mean that the group evolved and became distinct very early in the evolution of flowering plants -- sometime in the Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago). One line of evidence to support this is that they have a mix of traits normally not found together in the same plant. Specifically, they have traits of both monocots (grasses and true lilies) and dicots (daisies and roses), two groups into which flowering plants may be divided. Apparently, water lilies evolved before the separation of these two great evolutionary lines.

 

Our plant was first recognized as something worthy of study from a fragmented collection by Dr. F. V. Hayden (of the future “Hayden Expeditions”) who collected it in Idaho in 1860. The first Colorado collection was an 1862 collection by a Miss Merrill made at Gibson’s Lake, near Long's Peak, but not with enough material to describe the plant. Finally, Dr. Charles C. Parry gathered ample material in 1864 at Osborn's Lake, also in the Long’s Peak region, which Dr. George Engelmann used in writing a description. Neither Gibson’s Lake nor Osborn’s Lake are current names for lakes in either Larimer or Boulder Counties.

 

George Engelmann, M.D. (1809 – 1884) was a German-American botanist. He was instrumental in describing the flora of western North America and was particularly active in the Rocky Mountains and northern Mexico. Living in Saint Louis, Missouri, Engelmann was visited by many western explorers on their way west and again upon their return, so he got a first look at freshly collected western plants. Engelmann was a founder and longtime president of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences and encouraged the wealthy St. Louis businessman Henry Shaw to develop his gardens to be of scientific as well as public use. "Shaw's Gardens" became the Missouri Botanical Garden, a premier western botanical garden and research center.

 

We have eleven plants that are native to Golden that Engelmann first identified for science, including three cacti and the buffalo grass that I wrote about recently.

Literature Cited:
- Weber, William A., 1997.  

Most of these characters, like Charles Parry MD and George Engelmann MD, we have met before, and I’m sure we will see them again. William A. Weber, botanist at University of Colorado – Boulder, wrote Parry’s biography, titled, “King of Colorado Botany: Charles Christopher Parry, 1823-1890.”

 

 

 

Literature Cited:
- Parry, Charles C., 1866.  

Taxonomic History

 

Literature Cited:
- Engelmann, George, 1866.  

Appendix. By Dr. G. Engelmann.
I.
Nuphar polysepalum (sp. nov.) : foliis late ovatis sinu angusto profunde cordatis; floris magni sepalis 9-12 concavis mediis maximis, petalis 12-18 spatulatis retusis, staminum numerosissimorum antheris apice truncato-appendiculatis filamenta demum recurva requantibus sen eis bvevioribus, ovarii urceolati striati radiis stigmatosis 13-21 disci umbilicati marginem crenatum fere attingentibus ; bacca versus apicem constrictura nec rostratum sulcata.
In small lakes, in the higher Rocky Mountains, from the sources of the Platte, near Long's Peak, lat. 40, to those of the Columbia River, lat. 44. Dr. F. V. Hayden collected it in the then Capt. W. F. Raynold's Expedition, on June 20, I860, in a small lake, between Henry's Fork and Snake Fork of the Columbia River, at an altitude of 6,500 feet. Miss Merrill, in the year 1862, brought from Gibson's Lake, near Long's Peak, some of the large reddish sepals, verifying her vague account of the plant; and, finally, Dr. Parry gathered ample material and full notes, which have been largely used in the following description, in Osborn's Lake, in the same region, at an altitude of 8,800 feet, where it grows with Menyanthes trifoliata, Utricularia intermedia, Scirpus, Carex, etc.; he found it in flower in August, the temperature of the water being, at the time, 58 degrees.
The leaves are more like those of Nuphar luteum of Europe than those of our N. advena, being oval in outline, not deltoid-orbicular, and with a narrower, more closed, sinus, the obtuse lobes more gradually separating from one another. In N. advena I find the sinus often of 75 degrees ; the lobes are then triangular, with acutish points; but this form of the sinus, and shape of the leaf, is by no means constant, for whenever the substance of the leaf is more fully developed, the lobes become broader, more obtuse, and the sinus, of course, narrower, as I find it in specimens from Arkansas ; while sometimes, as in specimens from Houston, Texas, the sinus becomes closed up and the lobes even overlap.
The leaves of our species were floating when observed; five of them were 8½–9½ inches long and 6½–7½ inches wide; these five leaves, and five of N. luteum, give each an average proportion of length to width as 10 to 8, while the same number of leaves of N. advena, from different parts of the United States, gives the proportion of 10 to 9. The difference seems small enough, but in the appearance of the leaf is quite striking. I notice, also, a difference in the venation of the leaves of these three species, there being, in our species, nearly three times as many veins connected with the midrib as issue from the base, while in both the other species I observe only about twice as many from the midrib as from the base. It may, in this connection, not be out of place to state that, as far as my observations extend, all the species of Nuphar can be readily distinguished from all those of Nymphaea by their venation, the former having by far the largest number of secondary ribs connected with the midrib, while in Nymphaea most ribs are basilar, and few only come from the midrib.
The flowers of our plant emerge a few inches above the surface of the water ; they are the largest of any known Nuphar, and are composed of from 9 to 12 sepals, many more than we find in any other species, whence the name. The sepals being concave, and “the inner ones curved in, partially concealing the greater part of the dense mass of stamens,” the flower becomes “globular cup shaped,” and is about 3 inches in diameter, while when fully laid open it measures 4½–5 inches. The sepals are arranged, not, as it was at first supposed, in 3 or 4 whorls of 3 sepals each, but in 5/13 disposition, or, perhaps, the outer ones in 2/5 divergence, gradually changing into 5/13. The sepals increase in size and petaloid appearance from the outermost or first to the 7th or 8th, when they decrease again in size, but become of more delicate petaloid structure and color ; the three outer ones are oval, l¼-l½ inches long, green with yellowish margins ; the 2 or 3 next ones are orbicular, 2-2½ inches long, and of a yellowish green color; the following ones are the largest, 2½ inches long, 3 inches in diameter, transverse in shape, broadly spatulate at base and retuse or truncate above ; they are yellow, and often “tinged with the red of a deep peach blush, especially in fading;” and the innermost are smaller again, spatulate-orbicular, often emarginate, 1-1½ inches long, yellow, or, especially on the edges, reddish brown. Dr. Parry has repeatedly observed transitions between these inner sepals and the petals.
The petals themselves are spatulate, truncate, 12-18 in number, “9 lines long and 6 lines broad;” in the dried specimens I find them only 5 lines long and from 2 to 4 lines wide; in Dr. Parry's specimens they are “deep red in the middle and yellow at the base and tip.”
The stamens, much more numerous than in the allied species, together with the anthers and the appendage, are deep red, relieved by the bright yellow color of the (oval, hispid, as in the genus) pollen, the outer ones broader and shorter, the inner ones narrower and longer ; at maturity they are recurved.
The stigmatic disc is deeply umbilicate, and bears 13-21 (usually 16-19) stigmatic rays, which extend near to the irregularly crenate margin ; it has a green or a deep red color or red, edged with yellow, and has, in the dried specimens before me, a diameter of 9-11 lines. In N. luteum the disc is similarly formed, while in all the western specimens of N. acdvena (I have no others at my disposal) I invariably find the disc entire or undulate, and the rays not extending to the margin.
The fruit found by Dr. Parry, only half ripe, is “smooth, glossy, deep green, and furrowed, especially towards the top;” dry, it is 1¼ inches long, and 1½ inches in diameter.
The flowers of Dr. Parry's plant are more highly colored than that of Dr. Hayden's, and may preserve the name of var. pictum, which the discoverer has applied to the species; it seems to bear the same relation to the duller colored northern form that N. luteum, var. rubro-petalum (Caspary in Schriften der phys. oekon. Gesellsch. zu Koenigsberg, vol. 2, 1861, tab. 1), does to the common European plant; in that variety the stamens as well as the disc are yellow, like the sepals, only the petals, and especially their upper surface, are “brown blood-red.” On page 50, Prof. Caspary alludes to our N. advena as being more frequently found with red petals and points of stamens, than with yellow ones, a fact which will be new to many of our botanists, as, at least in the Western and South-western States, a red tinge has not been observed by them.*
* After this was written, I received from Prof. A. Gray a specimen of Nuphar advena found in Massachusetts, with a brownish-red tinge on the outer, and a red blush on the inner sepals red-tipped petals and reddish ovary and stigmatic disc ; the outer stamens only showed a slight red tinge just below the polliniferous part.

 

 

   

Literature Cited

  A list of all literature cited by this web site can be found in the Bibliography.
  Engelmann, George. 1866. Appendix — Nuphar polysepalum (sp. nov.). Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Lousi. 2(2):282-285. Link to external document.
  Parry, Charles C. 1866. Notice of some additional observations on the Physiography of the Rocky Mountains, made during the Summer of 1864. Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Lousi. 2(2):272-282. Link to external document.
  Weber, William A. 1997. King of Colorado Botany: Charles Christopher Parry, 1823-1890. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, January 1, 1997.
If you have a question or a comment you may write to me at: tomas@schweich.com I sometimes post interesting questions in my FAQ, but I never disclose your full name or address.  

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Date and time this article was prepared: 12/9/2024 7:21:00 PM