This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s the buoyant beacon of bottomland and pond, the American White Waterlily (Nymphaea odorata).
The American White Waterlily is found scattered about the Eastern United States and most of the South Carolina coastal plain. It’s a denizen of slow flowing freshwater pools, ponds, lakes, oxbows, beaver dams, and bottomlands where the water is clear, shallow yet deep, and not overly nutrient rich. It does best in the warm waters of the South where ponds aren’t too deep and never freeze solid. Waterlily is a submerged aquatic plant. It establishes in the mucky substrate of a pond bottom and propagates throughout it as scaly rhizome. This rhizome anchors roots down below to extract nutrients from the murky depths and sends stems up above to reach the sunlit surface. These ropey stems extend through several feet of water until they breach the surface with a single leaf.
Waterlily leaves unfurl into the classic “lily pads” we all know and love: dish-shaped with a shallow rim, a wedge missing from the back, and floating tight atop the surface of the water. These leaves have a hydrophobic coating that repels water, keeping them dry and atop the water, rather than trapped below. The leaves and stems are largely hollow and full of air, allowing them to float to the surface no matter how deep it gets. These hollow stems also act like snorkels that flow oxygen enriched air down to the spongey roots. The bottom of a pond is often devoid of all oxygen and so oxygen must be pump down to sustain their roots. The flower of American White Waterlily is an unmistakable sight shining in the swamp, a large and brilliant pearl-white whirl of petals cupped around a golden heart of anthers, floating atop or hovering just above the water amidst a glistening flotilla of green lily pads; a porcelain hand from the Lady of the Lake offering a gilded treasure from the murky mire.
This elongated growth form of the American White Waterlily allows the plant to get the best of both worlds. It can reap the full intensity of the sun’s rays and mine the nutrient rich mud at the bottom of the pond, all while having a steady flow of oxygen to its roots and an infinite supply of water. This stringy shape allows it to grow where few other plants can manage. As such, its root system can get quite extensive and Waterlily can quickly fill up a pond. Waterlily does best in ponds with low dissolved nutrient levels and consistent but light winter freezes, where its unique growth form is most advantageous and it doesn’t face excessive competition from duckweeds.
Waterlily provides food and habitat for a whole host of wildlife. Dragonflies enjoy perching upon the floating leaves. Frogs nestle between and upon the lily pads while fish lurk in their shade below. Beavers and Muskrats feed on the leaves and rhizomes of the plant. Ducks feed on its floating seeds and, by extension, help spread American White Waterlily seeds between ponds and swamps to start new populations.
