Nymphaea alba

Nymphaea alba in the Danube delta, Romania.

The European white water lily (Nymphaea alba), also called coverts, skull of Europe , white moth, white nymph, love rose, venus rose, white aguapé or water lily, is an aquatic plant of the nymphaceae family, which inhabits calm watercourses and ponds in temperate regions of Europe, tolerating even cold water. contaminated. It flowers between June and September and is harvested in summer and autumn.

Features

It has a fleshy and horizontal rhizome, which takes root at the bottom of the water mirror in which it lives. The leaves float, at the end of long petioles; they are large, cordate and well lobed, leathery in texture and light green in color. The flowers are solitary, hermaphrodite, with a long peduncle and white to pink in color; the calyx is made up of four sepals, and the corolla of up to fifty thick petals. The stamens are numerous, provided with yellow anthers. Pollination can be autogamous or entomogamous. The fruit, an achene, disseminates the seeds by hydrochory. 2n = 56, 84.

Distinguished from the closely related boreal white water lily, Nymphaea candida JC.Presl 1822 by the number of chromosomes in the somatic cells (2n = 84). Two subspecies are known, Nymphaea alba subsp. alba, already described by Linnaeus, and Nymphaea alba subsp. occidentalis

Distribution

China, India, Russia, Cadeaso, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Southwest Asia, Europe. It has also been introduced in other countries such as Chile.

Legend of Cupid and Nymphea

Irritated by the scorn of the goddess Diana, Cupid one day took his arrows, mounted his bow, took one of them and aimed it at Diana's heart. The arrow flew to her target, but did not hit Diana, who in a quick movement managed to dodge it. However, the arrow pierced the breast of Ninfea, one of Diana's nymphs.

Ninfea was thus in love, and her heart experienced what it had never felt before; an unknown ardor consumed her. She was then torn between a blind desire and modesty. She cursed the austere laws, and she bitterly complained of the yoke that necessity imposed on her. She tried within herself to pluck the arrow, but she couldn't. With groans and complaints she launched into the woods. "Oh shame! she exclaimed she-she; you, the most precious and most beautiful adornment of a sacred nymph; if my spirit is guilty towards you of a living feeling that offends you, my body is still innocent; let this victim be enough for your sublime anger; may this pure wave wash me from a crime that I conceived for my sorrow, and that my will with horror detests." Thus she said, and raising her eyes to heaven, flooded with tears, she rushed into the waters. Meanwhile, her companions were looking for her. The dryads finally found her. Diana deplored Ninfea's horrible fate, but she did not allow her body to be submerged. On the ripples of the water she floated it, and she made it into the flower she calls the water-lily, brilliant white, with a stately stem of broad green leaves. Since then, the waters surrounding the water lily have been calm and calm.

Diana wanted that, since Nymphea had calmed the fires of the passion of the son of Venus in the cold element of water, likewise the water lily had the property of calming, and of dulling the senses so as not to surrender to the ardor of the voluptuousness

Since that time, the nymphs no longer fear Cupid's arrows, since the humble water lily protects them and serves as an antidote to Love's attacks.

Uses

It has been attributed medicinal properties such as antiaphrodisiac, calming and anticholinergic. Formerly it was used in convents and seminaries in the form of an infusion. Supposedly it can be used in nymphomania and genital erectism.

The seeds can be used as a substitute for coffea and the flowers can be preserved in brine.

However, the culture of N. alba is mainly ornamental; a red variety, from Lake Fagertärn in Tividen, Sweden, is particularly popular, although collection from the wild is severely restricted today.

Common names

Skull shield, river shield, covert, coverts, bowls, white shield, river shield, river shields, shields, shield flowers, water lily flowers, nymphaeus flowers, white gullery, golfan, white gullard, shield grass, water figs, river figs, river figs, water lily, white water lily, water lily, white nymphea, nymph, white nymph, white flower nymph, nymphea, white nymphea, white flower nymphea, nymphea, plates, love rose, rose of Venus, shield grass, shield grass.