Water hyacinth grows into a thick bed of waxy leaves and violet flowers that cover the surface of the lake.

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As my eyes adjusted, I realized that this seemingly solid carpet of green was actually a large, dense grouping of water hyacinth, throbbing with electric blue and crimson dragonflies, spindly mottled spiders and monstrous ants.

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The Aswan high dam, for example, is often cited as a cautionary example, a quixotic construction that now reduces the mighty Nile to a dribble before it trickles to the sea, leaving behind an explosion of water hyacinth, outbreaks of bilharzia, polluted irrigation channels and a build-up of sediment inland that would otherwise compensate for coastal erosion from Egypt to Lebanon.

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Pushing back the greens a bit, I made room in the lower part of the arrangement for hits of the saturated blue of fragrant hyacinth and the lighter blue of the smaller grape hyacinth to reflect the tonal shifts in color of the sky and water in this idyllic scene.

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