Can the “water” lily really “sleep”?

The sunshine in the garden, the air is filled with the fragrance of flowers, I ask Monet to do me a favor, can you take a self-portrait... Jay Chou's new song "The Greatest Work" released not long ago has once again set off the Chinese song charts. The song uses the encounter between the singer and various artists to point the sword at the human art hall, paying tribute to the masters who created great works. Among them is Monet and his "Water Lilies".

As a representative and founder of Impressionism, Monet left behind more than 500 sketches and more than 2,000 oil paintings in his lifetime, making important contributions to modern Western painting. Among Monet's many works, the "Water Lilies" series is the most famous. He loved painting water lilies so much that when he lost most of his vision due to eye disease, he was able to continue to paint amazing water lily works with his strong memory of colors.

In fact, not only Monet, but many painters and artists in the world are obsessed with water lilies and have created countless popular classic works for them. So, what exactly is the water lily and why does it fascinate so many literati and poets?

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Water lilies are perennial floating-leaf aquatic herbs . The leaves are flat and thin, floating on the water surface; when the water lilies enter the flowering period, the flowers also float on the water. Imagine a sunny afternoon, the leaves and flowers spread out on the water surface, the breeze blows, the water lilies also sway on the water surface, just like a "flowing light and shadow".

Anyone who has observed water lilies will find that most of them close their petals at night and open again the next morning , as if they have lived with humans for a long time and followed humans’ principle of “resting at sunset and working at sunrise”. This is how the nickname “Sleeping Beauty among Flowers” ​​came about.

Do water lilies really sleep? The answer is of course no. In fact, in nature, most plants will form their own circadian rhythm based on local environmental factors such as light, temperature, humidity, and natural enemies. This circadian rhythm is the photoperiod phenomenon of plants .

Water lilies are widely distributed. Except for extremely cold regions, water lilies can be found all over the world. Therefore, the "work and rest" pattern of water lilies has profound regional characteristics . In the water lily area of ​​Wuhan Botanical Garden where I am located, I can see cold-resistant subgenus water lilies such as "Thomas" that opens in the morning and closes in the evening and "Fresh Pink" that opens in the morning and closes in the afternoon, as well as "Hefula" that opens in the afternoon and closes in the evening and tropical subgenus water lilies that open in the evening and close in the morning.

In addition to its strong reproductive capacity and wide variety , water lilies also have another feature that horticulturists love to talk about: rich colors. Not only do different varieties of water lilies have different colors, but even the same variety of water lilies has multiple colors. More importantly, the small water lilies are both beautiful and talented. They can absorb and adsorb nutrients and harmful substances in the water through their roots, stems, and leaves. Therefore, they are worthy of the reputation of "pond palette" and "water purifier". Based on the above two reasons, water lilies have been widely used in waterscape gardens, and their application history has been as long as 5,000 years .

my country started cultivating water lilies relatively late. The single color of native species and the geographical restrictions on natural hybridization are the main factors restricting the application and breeding of water lilies in gardens. However, with the increase in international exchanges and the development of ecological civilization construction in my country, as well as the emergence of water lily enthusiasts from all walks of life, a large number of water lily varieties have been introduced and widely used, and my country has also independently developed many new varieties.

Take the Wuhan Botanical Garden where I work as an example. In the late 1990s, the Wuhan Botanical Garden collected more than 50 tropical and cold-resistant varieties. In 1999, Mr. Huang Guozhen, known as the "Father of Lotus" in my country, introduced about 100 water lily varieties from the United States to the Wuhan Botanical Garden, and has been deeply engaged in water lily breeding research in the garden for several years. Because of Mr. Huang Guozhen's outstanding contribution, in 2016, Mr. Huang Guozhen won the "China Water Lily Lifetime Achievement Award" after winning the "International Water Lily Association Hall of Fame", the highest award in the world water lily industry.

In 2009, Wuhan Botanical Garden allocated 5,000 square meters to build a water lily variety display area in Moshan Park, which not only became a gathering place for water lily treasures from all over the world, but also a test platform for hybridization innovation of water lily germplasm resources. In May this year, the "cultivation method to promote winter flowering of water lilies" independently developed by Wuhan Botanical Garden greatly increased the flowering volume of water lilies, prolonged the flowering period of water lilies, and thus increased the economic value of water lilies, meeting market demand, and was authorized by the national invention patent, adding another contribution to my country's water lily breeding research.

According to incomplete statistics, my country currently has more than 400 varieties of water lilies preserved, covering all subgenera except the neotropical subgenera (which has no varieties yet). The achievements of my country's water lily genetic breeding research have also been continuously recognized by international peers. In the past nearly 20 years, China has bred 205 new varieties, of which 18 have been identified in China and 187 have been registered internationally.

Source: Popular Science Times

Author: Cheng Jiabao (Source: Voice of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Author's Unit: Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Editor: Wu Qiong

Review: Wang Fei

Final judge: Chen Lei

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