cow lily

English

A çow lily flower and leaves

Noun

cow lily (countable and uncountable, plural cow lilies)

1. A water lily of species Nuphar advena, of temperate eastern North America.

   Synonyms: yellow pond-lily, spatterdock

   • 1878, Annie Trumbull Slosson, “More Daisy Farm Letters”, in The China Hunters Club, page 201:

     Bess amused herself the other day by making a large bouquet entirely of yellow flowers of different shades and varieties, and it looked like a city milliner's window in this present season of "tilleul," "old gold," and "saffron:" vivid coreopsis, with dark velvet centres; "butter-and-eggs," with spires of palest straw color and orange mingled; barberry blossoms in drooping sprays, buttercups with gold enamelled blossoms, "yellow daises,"^[sic] a few late dandelions, the little "five-finger," and some yellow pond-lilies (they call them "cow-lilies" here).

   • 1910, Chester Albert Reed, Wild Flowers East of the Rockies, page 117:

     The Cow Lily is very common in still or stagnant water, often growing so profusely that passage in boats is almost impossible.

   • 1913, Clarence Moores Weed, Seeing Nature First, page 105:

     One seldom needs to stroll far along the shores of a pond or the sluggish inlet from a brook before finding the blossoms of the large yellow pond-lily, perhaps more often called the cow-lily.

Alternative forms

• cow-lily

References

• Nuphar advena on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Nuphar advena on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Nuphar advena on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons