George Griffith's fingers won't always be stained purple from packing hundreds of water lilies for shipment each spring.

And the 74-year-old designer won't always be able to slog into his ponds in hip waders to examine his Chinese lotus, grown from 2,000-year-old seeds.

But he will always be marked and mesmerized by these sweet sirens of the smallest seas.

	Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette George Griffith wades into one of his ponds to pick a Manchurian lotus flower at his farm in Ligonier. Click photo for larger image. Related article How to grow water lilies

"I think they're the most beautiful things on the face of the Earth. The leaves are like sculpture, and the flowers, well, just look at the colors."

As wide-eyed as the 8-year-old he was when he dug his first pond, he pours water onto a huge round leaf and points to air bubbles that form magically at its center.

"Many plants produce oxygen, but no other plant shows it that profusely."

Next Saturday, Mr. Griffith and his partner, Thomas O'Brien, will host a Celebrate the Lotus luncheon at their summer home in Ligonier. The third annual event benefits Phipps Conservatory and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. But the stars are the dozens of lotuses and hundreds of water lilies in shades of red, pink, yellow, white, even purple. Lotuses and lilies began to open each morning about two weeks ago, closing up in the afternoon or when rain threatens.

"They're the best forecasters," Mr. Griffith says.

Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette Light pink hybrid water lilies cover one of the ponds at George Griffith and Thomas O'Brien's farm in Ligioner. Click photo for larger image.

Most were open around 1:30 p.m. one day this week. The Chinese lotus flowers stand several feet above the surface of a pond, their dimpled golden centers fringed with yellow anthers, surrounded by pink petals tinged with yellow. Measuring 8 to 10 inches across, they smell faintly of anise. The smaller lilies, most of which float on the surface, are scattered throughout the 32 ponds on the 60-acre property.

Mr. Griffith, who co-owns the Flower Barn in Cambria County's Johnstown with Mr. O'Brien, started out as a boy selling goldfish and tropical fish at W.T. Grant's, then branched out into water plants. He has been raising fragrant water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) since the 1940s, when his uncle, Dr. Lewis Wesner of Johnstown, encouraged him to sell the lilies he had introduced into his pond in Bedford.

Mr. Griffith put himself through Penn State, where he received a bachelor's degree in horticulture, with the proceeds from his fish and water plants sales.

In 1955, while a student, his specialty drew the interest of Milton Eisenhower, Penn State president and brother of the U.S. president. To celebrate Dwight Eisenhower's visit to speak at commencement, Mr. Griffith floated 2,000 water lilies on a pond in front of the university president's home. A dramatic photo of the brothers and the pond appeared in Life magazine.

That presidential connection is the reason that the Manchurian variety of Chinese lotus (Nelumbium nucifera) grows in only two places in the United States -- Ligonier and Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, D.C.

	Post-Gazette George Griffith, left, and his partner Thomas O'Brien at last year's Celebrate the Lotus lunchon benefit at their summer home in Ligonier. Click photo for larger image.

In 1951, three ancient lotus seeds were discovered in a Manchurian lake bed in China. Although the seeds' thick coating can keep them viable for more than 100 years, no one thought that seeds 2,000 to 3,000 years old would still germinate. Paul Souder, a botanist at the national water gardens, proved it could be done.

In 1956, Mr. Griffith saw the plants blooming in a pond behind a chain-link fence at Kenilworth. Noticing that they were becoming the target of vandals, he asked his powerful friend if he might have a division to raise and preserve the variety. The Manchurian lotus bloomed first at his house in Johnstown and has prospered at the summer house in Ligonier since they bought it in 1978.

Mr. Griffith has perpetuated the ancient flower but does not sell it. But he has been hybridizing water lilies for a half century, creating the first peach-colored one -- and naming it 'Tom O'Brien' -- seven years ago. Other hybrids that he raises and sells include his own hardy lily 'Pink Sunrise,' two other hardy lilies --'Lemon Chiffon' and the darker yellow 'Charlene Strawn' -- and two bluish purple tropical lilies, 'Director Moore' and 'Foxfire.'

Each spring, a natural dye in the lilies' roots stains their fingers as they wrap hundreds in plastic and ship them off to retailers and customers around the country.

Mr. O'Brien leaves most of the tricky propagation to Mr. Griffith, but he has helped breed lilies that stay open longer.

"I couldn't do it without him," says Mr. Griffith.

Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette "Director Moore," a blue-purple water lily growing in one of the ponds at the farm. Click photo for larger image.

The rest of the year, the pair and their staff at the Flower Barn work with more traditional flowers and decorate for events near and far. Since the Reagan administration, they have provided flowers for state dinners and decorated the White House at Christmastime for five presidents, including George W. Bush.

On weekends, they tend their ponds and other flowers, sometimes digging new ponds or grading the land with the yellow backhoe parked nearby. Gravity and a series of pumps keep spring water moving among the ponds, and their two Corgis, O.B. and Freddy, keep wildlife in its proper place.

"Her passion is to put all the frogs back in the ponds," Mr. Griffith says of 7-year-old Freddy.

Neither dog is much help in rounding up more destructive critters like muskrats and deer. Men with traps take care of the muskrats, and Liquid Fence sprayed on the grass around the ponds usually discourages deer from wading in for a nibble. But it didn't stop them from decimating a collection of rare conifers one winter.

Messrs. Griffith and O'Brien now content themselves with other trees they planted, including Wisconsin and Babylon weeping willows, white spruce, blue spruce, weeping Norway spruce and weeping mulberry. A bed near the lotus pond is filled with black-eyed Susan, daylilies, bee balm and phlox. At the edges of the ponds are variegated sweet flag and one of Mr. Griffith's favorite plants, thalia.

"Look at its beautiful tropical leaf. Its seed heads sway in the wind like a metronome," he says.

As he talks, he gently peels a closed lotus bud like an onion, indicating each layer's subtle coloration. His lotuses and hardy lilies will continue to open through the fall, then winter at the bottom of the ponds, he says. But the tropical lilies' feast of flowers won't return next year.

"It's like, 'I have served you a fine dinner, now goodbye.'"

Celebrate the Lotus, a benefit luncheon, will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. next Saturday in Ligonier. (Rain date is Aug. 5.) Tickets, $50 per person, are available by calling the Flower Barn at 1-814-536-4433.