water lillies and flowers in England pre-1815

Sapphire135

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Does anyone know if there were water lilies in England during the Regency? I know they existed in the Victorian era, but am having a heckuva time finding reference to them prior to that.

I have a large pond in my novel and I want to mention water flowers, but I do not want to be inaccurate. Any type of water flower would do, but lilies are the first thing that came to mind.

I ordered a book by a naturalist from the 1800's about the cultivation of flowers, etc, on his estate but it has yet to arrive :(

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks all!
 

Marlys

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Yes. The OED has citations from the 1500s, and they certainly show up in a number of 18th-century texts. The yellow (Nymphaea lutea) and white (N. alba) ones seem to be native all over Europe, including Britain.
 

Sapphire135

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Thanks Marlys! I did not even think to use the OED. I have been looking at historical garden references and regency era books.
 

Marlys

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Another good place to look is Google Books. If you do an advanced search for "water lily" and use a cutoff date of 1815, you get a bunch of references--including A Generic and Specific Description of British Plants, which has an entry for the plant. Learn to manipulate the search function there, and you can cut way down on the reference books you need to order!
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Also try archive.org. Their scanned volumes are far more readable than most Google docs and in addition to the books they scanned they also have a lot of the books Google scanned.
 

Sapphire135

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Another good place to look is Google Books. If you do an advanced search for "water lily" and use a cutoff date of 1815, you get a bunch of references--including A Generic and Specific Description of British Plants, which has an entry for the plant. Learn to manipulate the search function there, and you can cut way down on the reference books you need to order!

Also try archive.org. Their scanned volumes are far more readable than most Google docs and in addition to the books they scanned they also have a lot of the books Google scanned.


Thanks Marlys and Ultragotha! I will definitely try your suggestions.
:)