What our father and his associates learned was truly amazing.  Although the dictionary defines a pollutant as "a harmful chemical or waste material discharged into the water or atmosphere" - and in our father's experiment, the offending substance went into both of these environmental reservoirs - the water lilies in the CO2-polluted enclosures seemed to grow better than the water lilies in the normal enclosures, right from the very start of the study.

Although the first new growth from the original rhizomes that were planted in the layers of soil at the bottoms of the tanks all reached the surface of the water at essentially the same time, the leaves that unfurled themselves in the polluted tanks were slightly larger than those in the normal tanks.  The percent dry matter contents of the leaves in the polluted tanks were also greater.  And these two factors combined to produce leaves in the polluted tanks that were composed of 68% more dry matter, on average, than leaves produced in the non-polluted tanks.

In addition to being larger and more substantial, the leaves in the polluted tanks had more company: there were 75% more of them than there were in the normal tanks over the course of the initial five-month growing season (which, incidentally, lasted two weeks longer in the polluted tanks).  Each of the plants in the polluted tanks also produced twice as many flowers as the plants growing in normal air; and the flowers that blossomed in the CO2-polluted air were more substantial than those that bloomed in the air of normal CO2 concentration.  They had more petals, the petals were longer, they had a greater percent dry matter content, and each flower consequently weighed about 50% more.  In addition, the stems that supported the flowers were slightly longer in the polluted tanks; and the percent dry matter contents of both the flower and leaf stems were greater, so that the total dry matter in the flower and leaf stems in the polluted tanks exceeded that of the flower and leaf stems in the non-polluted tanks by approximately 60%.

Just above the surface of the soil that covered the bottoms of the tanks, there were also noticeable differences.  Plants in the polluted tanks had more and bigger basal rosette leaves, which were attached to longer stems of greater percent dry matter content, which led to the total biomass of these portions of the plants being 2.9 times greater than the total biomass of the corresponding portions of the plants in the unpolluted tanks.  In addition, plants in the polluted tanks had more than twice as many unopened basal rosette leaves.

The greatest differences of all were hidden within the soil that covered the bottoms of the stock tanks.  When half of the plants were harvested at the conclusion of the first growing season, the number of new rhizomes produced over that period was discovered to be 2.4 times greater in the CO2-polluted tanks than it was in the unpolluted tanks; while the number of major roots produced there was found to be 3.2 times greater than the number produced in the normal environment.  And as with all other plant parts, the percent dry matter contents of the new roots and rhizomes were also greater in the polluted tanks.

Overall, the total dry matter production within the submerged soils of the water lily ecosystems was 4.3 times greater in the CO2-polluted tanks than it was in the normal tanks; while the total dry matter production of all plant parts - those in the submerged soil, those in the free water, and those in the air above - was 3.7 times greater in the high-CO2 enclosures.

Over the second growing season, the growth enhancement in the polluted tanks was somewhat less; but the plants in the CO2-polluted environments were so far ahead of the plants in the normal water lily ecosystems that, in their first five months of growth, they produced what it took the plants in the normal air fully 21 months to produce.

Ah, if only all air and water pollutants were as bad as CO2, what a wonderful world it would be.  As Shakespeare so obviously and correctly stated before the United States of America and its Environmental Protection Agency were ever dreamt of, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  Clearly, government edicts may change the classification of a substance, but they cannot change its nature!