Water lilies: members of the family nymphaeales, shown by DNA testing to be one of the oldest flowering plant lineages in existence. Common in many garden ponds, they range from dwarf varieties to the giant Victoria, with leaves 15 ft in diameter (they used to pose babies on the leaves to show how strong they were).This was my very first water lily photo, taken in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco:





I am addicted to water lilies: they make fantastic subjects, not only because of their beauty but because you can play with reflections. This one shows one of the waterlily ponds at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden during an installation by glass artist Dale Chihuly: the amazing stack of cloudy pink "rocks" made a wonderful background to the lilies.



This one was taken in the garden pond in front of the New Orleans Museum of Art:




And here is Amazonia, with its huge leaves. I find the flowers sort of disappointing, but you can't deny they are spectacular:




And finally, not a very good shot in artistic terms, but gorgeous in its color: