9 



13. VICTORIA regia. 



Great interest having been excited by the stories told in 

 the newspapers of this extraordinary plant, the following 

 account of it has been taken from a memoir upon the 

 subject, of which twenty-five copies only have been privately 

 circulated. Some Botanical explanations concerning the 

 genus, not introduced into the original memoir, are here 

 given from such materials as I possess. 



" An undoubted addition to a tribe of plants, at once so 



beautiful and so circumscribed as that of the Nymphs, or 



Water-lilies, would be an event of interest even if it only 



related to a distinctly marked species of some well knovik 



genus. But when the subject of the discovery is not only 



a new genus, but a plant of the most extraordinary beauty, 



fragrant, — and of dimensions previously unheard of in the 



whole vegetable kingdom, except in the colossal familj' of 



Palms, an interest must then attach to it, which can rarelv 

 1 « *' 



be possessed by a novelty in natural history. ' 



" Such a plant is the subject of the following notice ; a 

 Water-lily, exhibiting a new type of structure, of the most 

 noble aspect, of the richest colours, and so gigantic that its 

 leaves measure above eighteen feet, and its flower nearly 

 /our feet, in circumference. It was met with in British 

 Guayana,in lat. 4" 30' N., long. 58" W. nearly, by Mr. Robert 

 H. Schomburgk, a German gentleman, travelling on account 

 of the Royal Geographical Society, assisted by Her Majesty's 

 Government, for the purpose of examining the natural pro- 

 ductions of that part of the British dominions.' In an ac- 

 count of the plant, transmitted to the Geographical Society, 

 Mr. Schombupgk speaks thus of his discovery. 



* It was on the first of January this year, while contend- 

 ing with the difficulties nature imposed in different forms to 

 our progress up the river Berbice (in British Guiana), that 

 we arrived at a point where the river expanded, and formed 

 a currentless basin ; some object on the southern extremity 

 of this basin attracted my attention ; it was impossible to 

 form any idea what it could be, and animating the crew 

 to increase the rate of their paddling, we were shortly after- 

 wards opposite the object which had raised my curiosity 

 a vegetable wonder! All calamities were forgotten; I felt 



B. Feb. 1838. e 



•->. 



