63 
be heated artificially, so as to ensure for their roots the tem- 
perature to which they are naturally exposed, and which cannot 
be estimated at less than 80° during the season of growth. 
_ Having thus adverted to Vicrorta, I trust I may be per- 
mitted to avail myself of this opportunity, for making a remark 
or two upon certain statements concerning it which have ap- 
peared in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for January of 
the present year. The authors of these statements are Messrs. 
Guillemin and D’Orbigny, and their object in putting them 
forth is evidently that of shewing that if I first published it 
I did not know how to describe it, and of claiming for the 
latter traveller the credit of having first discovered it. 
M. Guillemin states that M. D’Orbigny, in the year 
1828, sent dried specimens of the flowers and fruit to the 
Museum at Paris, and that “cette plante avait de si grands 
rapports avec l’ Euryale que les botanistes du Jardin de Paris 
whesitérent pas à la considérer comme sa congénére ;” the 
remainder of M. Guillemin’s memoir seems intended to shew 
that in fact, although not an Euryale, Victor1a is more 
nearly allied to that genus than to Nymphea, and he blames 
me for not being of the same opinion. ‘Au lieu,” says M. 
Guillemin, “d'indiquer légèrement les rapports du Vicrorta 
avec l’Euryale, et d'imsister sur ses différences avec le 
Nymphea, M. Lindley aurait dû nous dire en quoi il différe 
essentiellement de l Euryale.” This is rather an amusing 
complaint from a gentleman who after all admits that Vicro- 
RIA is not an Euryale, which he tells us that the botanists of 
the French Museum always supposed it to be, till they were 
set right; and it is the more curious since I have in fact dis- 
tinctly stated that which M. Guillemin complains of my having 
omitted to state; as he will see if he will refer to the Botanical 
Register for 1838, where, at p. 12 and 13 of the miscellaneous 
matter, the whole question is considered systematically, and a 
much more detailed account of the organization of the flower 
is given than what M. Guillemin has favoured us with. The 
only additional remark that I find it necessary to make upon 
M. Guillemin is this; he attaches great value to a rostrate 
process that rises up from the centre of the apex of the fruit 
in Vicrorta, and he regards it as the most important mark of 
distinction between that genus and Euryale. This may be; 
but if so, it furnishes an argument which he has overlooked, 
against the affinity of VICTORIA with that genus, and in 
