Waterlilies

The highlight of Thursday's paddle for me was the waterlilies.  Both the white and yellow native waterlilies are in bloom, and these small lakes let us see quite a few of each.  The white species, the Fragrant Waterlily, opens up into a beautiful flower; the yellow species, the Bullhead Lily, stays wrapped in a globe of yellow sepals.  Both float on the surface of the water, with their roots deep below.  I'll just let these photos speak for themselves.

 

 

You may not know the story of Claude Monet, the great French painter, the founder of the 'Impressionist' style of open-air landscape painting.  In his later life Monet established a garden at Giverny, outside Paris, with a large pond, which he made into his water garden.  He became immersed in painting pictures of waterlilies and their reflections in the pond for the last 20 years of his life.

His final gift to the people of France was a group of enormous waterlily paintings that wrap around two large oval rooms built for this purpose in the Orangerie gallery in Paris.  We had the chance to visit both Monet's garden at Giverny and his waterlily paintings in Paris earlier this year, and it was just amazing to see the link between the actual water garden and the famous paintings.  I guess I have waterlilies on my mind!