N. 'Hickory Bend Ruth'.
Descriptions by Charles Leach.
Hickory Bend Ruth is a non viviparous day bloomer with lavender pink flowers 8" or more across. It is not uncommon for a single plant to have three or four flowers open at a time. Early season blooms, here in zone 6, tend to be more pink while late season blooms tend to be more lavender.  Leaves are green with radiating maroon streaks that change to gold with nearly red streaks over time. Flowers open early, stay open late and are very fragrant.
She was our first hybrid and her story is told in my, Chance Seedlings - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly article. What isn't told is that when I sent a couple of tubers to a highly respected expert for his opinion of our treasure, his opinion was that Hickory Bend Ruth was actually General Pershing with a different name, which is absolutely untrue. When we bought a General Pershing for comparison the difference in the leaves was night and day initially. Ruth's leaves were green with reddish edges and maroon streaks while those of General Pershing were solid green, but as the season progressed the differences in leaves and flowers became less and less until they were almost identical. One entity however had no difference telling them apart.
The year the comparison was made we has a plague of Japanese beetles that ate highly the flowers of Ruth while leaving those of other waterlilies almost untouched. Unless we picked the bugs off Ruth's blooms almost constantly they would be devoured while those of the general were almost untouched. I can recall only picking a couple beetles off of General Pershing flowers and when I did there were no apparent holes in the petals leading me to believe that they were just resting.
Another difference in the two was that H.B. Ruth performs magnificently for us. It blooms very well, tubers well and winters well inside. Our one and only General Pershing produced no tuber and died when brought inside in spite of our best efforts to winter it over.