Recently the water lilies in our garden show their beauties. All of them are in purple colour. The big blue bucket that can store about hundreds litters of water is their stage. They are not performing a catwalk on the stage but stand proudly above the surface of the water accompanied by their own leaves and other water plants in green colour which let the water lilies being highlighted in purple colour. Bees and butterflies are always attracted to stop by because the water lilies are sweet and have a nice scent.

If you cannot differentiate the lotus and water lily, let me tell you how to identify them. Water lily leaves lies on the surface of the water, whereas lotus leave stand in the air. Their flowers are also different. You can see pedals or stigma in the center of the water lily whereas there is a round-shaped platform with holes in the middle of lotus flower. It is called the lotus seeds head. Both of them are similar but actually different.

From my observation, this purple water lily bloom from the morning till late afternoon. The blooming time is longer than the pink water lily. I saw both of them in a park and found that the pink water lily take her break earlier than the purple water lily. The pink water lily feels shy and hides herself earlier at about noon time.

The scientific name for water lily is called Nymphaeaceae. In Chinese it is called “Shui4Lian2” or Sleeping Lotus, because the leaves are sleeping on the water. There is a type of “Shui4Lian2” has a giant size leave and allow kids to stand on it, but I have never seen a real one with my eyes. From Wikipedia, I cannot see the difference between “He2Hua1” and “Lian2Hua1” (Water lily and lotus in Chinese). They consider both names can be use for both flowers.  Maybe in different places, people address them differently.  But from my understanding “He2Hua1” means water lily and “Lian2Hua” means lotus.

I have taken these water lily pictures from different angles. First two pictures was taken using the largest aperture, however the background is still not blurred enough. That is the limitation of the lenses. I start to consider having a DSLR instead of semipro camera. The 3rd and 4th used the smallest aperture to increase the depth of field.

This last picture show that the water lily is sleeping. She lies down on the surface of the water, but she will stand up again the next morning when the sunlight is strong enough but not too hot. It’s similar to a lady, if it is too dark, she is scared, and if the sunlight is too strong, she won’t step out of the door.