Water Lily

Only months before his death in August, 1881, Charles Darwin wrote:

"Nothing is more extraordinary in the history of the Vegetable Kingdom, as it seems to me, than the apparently very sudden or abrupt development of the higher plants. I have sometimes speculated whether there did not exist somewhere during long ages an extremely isolated continent perhaps near the South Pole."

He could not find any evidence that flowering plants evolved over a long period of time, and this was termed his ‘abominable mystery'. Chen et al in Horticulture Research (2017) 4, argues that the genetic code of the water lily, such as this nymphaea alba I photographed enjoying the sunshine in the lake at Fountains Abbey, helps to explain this abominable mystery. Fools on a fools’ errand, they are; the very idea that a Creator God made not just this lily and its flowering neighbours, but the entire cosmos, simply does not seem to occur to the atheistic intelligentsia.

Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was full of darkness. When they professed themselves to be wise, they became fools. Romans 1:21-22, Geneva Bible