Waterlilies have a built-in system to survive floods and droughts and other environmental disasters. During periods of intense rainfall, I've seen as much as a foot of water over the waterlily pads. Yet the next day even though the water level has not dropped significantly those leaves are back floating on the surface! How did this happen? Actually what you see is occurring all the time, you're just not aware of it. The stem of each waterlily leaf never stops lengthening throughout its short life of 3-4 weeks. Therefore when it floods those ever lengthening stems bring the pads back up to the surface in no time!
