WATER-LILIES DO NOT DROWN
Gardeners have often asked me why water-lillies do not get drowned. This is quite simple. The huge fiat leaves floating on the surface of the water are supplied with stomata or pores which eject by transperation with the sun, all the surplus moisture contained in the stalks. A single leaf will bear as many as 11,000,000 stomata, thus Nature gets rid of the excess moisture that the plant draws from the muddy bottom of the pool. Floating water-lillies are continually subject to the risk of having their foliage entirely submerged during flood periods and being left high and dry when the pool becomes low. To obviate this the stalks are always very flexible, like a length of twine, and as the leaver are buoyed up by air chambers, they float on the surface at any level just as a cork attached by string to a stone at the bottom would float to the top.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SUNAK19280519.2.193.3
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Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 358, 19 May 1928, Page 26
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158WATER-LILIES DO NOT DROWN Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 358, 19 May 1928, Page 26
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