The Gladstone blossom opens only for a few days. So, it needs to be especially enticing.
To that end, in the blossom’s dark orange center, there’s a pool of sweet syrupy liquid (clearly visible above), with which the flower of the Gladstone water lily attracts its pollinators.
And in this one (from our pond today), you can see entombed in that clear sweet syrup, a bug. I’m betting it stayed too long. And in that blissful syrupy late afternoon, did not notice the petals slowly closing around it, as the sun began to fade, until, it, was, too late.
What’s also neat about hardy water lilies, is that their flowers close up under storm clouds too. So, I’ve seen them open and close more more than once a day.