Wetland Team Blog

Holy moley, y’all!!! We went collecting water lilies this week and oh my! it was an adventure. They lilies appeared deceptively shallow as they were so close to the shoreline. What we realized later was the drop-off in the ditch was significant and these lilies have significantly long stems and roots buried deep. We were able to claim 12 lilies (which are now potted up in the Clear Lake nursery). We also collected several button bush stems, Rhynchospora corniculata, and Echinodorus rostratus. Thanks to all who came out collecting because it was difficult.

We also had a small crew plugging away at the seeds which we are hoping to have ready in September when the excavation should be complete. Thanks to Ray, Gail and Lana for keeping at it!!!

Plant of the Week

Picture courtesy of Steve Upperman

White Water Lily, Nymphea odorata

This lovely floating aquatic plant is truly a deep water species–as we experienced this past week. The Team ventures out to collect some (maybe 50) plants for our stock and in trying to gather these stock plants, we learned first-hand how long their reddish to purple submerged stems run down to their buried-in-the-muck rhizomes.

For the few that were ok to immerse themselves above their knee boots, it would take careful tracing of the stems down the mud to get the root, at which point, you are up to your arm pits in the water and causally watching the little fish swim by. These lilies have a pretty white flower which blooms most of the year (except deep winter). We have successfully transplanted Nymphea into the deepest sections of our restored ponds (Pond 2, 17, and 14S).