come to maturity. The luxuriance and the free blossom- 
ing of this specimen were attributed by the very skilful gar- 
dener to the water in the cistern being frequently changed, 
while the cistern itself was placed in a damp stove, suited 
to Palms and Orchideous epiphytes. In this situation, the 
petioles rose to the height of four and five feet, crowned 
with their ample foliage, and the peduncles to the height of 
six feet, terminated by their equally ample blossoms. 
The colour of the petals is usually a pale (but not dingy, 
as represented in our tab. 903) rose colour. Here the hue 
was much richer and deeper. Sometimes the flowers are 
white, as exhibited in Dr. Wieur’s “ Illustrations of Indian 
Botany ;”’ and not seldom, as shown in Chinese drawings 
and on porcelain from that country, are they white, tipped 
and streaked with rose colour. 
On our visiting Syon Gardens a second time, in company with 
Baron HuGEL, when the fruit had almost come to maturity, that dis- 
tinguished Botanist and Traveller observed that, in that state, the nuts 
are generally eaten in Hindostan at the dessert, and have an agreeable 
flavor, not unlike that of Filberts. Dr. Wicur also remarks that, both 
in the East Indies and in China, the creeping root-like stems and nuts 
are used as food. The leaf and flower-stalks, too, he tells us, abound in 
spiral tubes, more loosely combined and perhaps stronger than the same 
vessels in most other vascular plants. These, in the southern provinces 
of India, are extracted with great care, by gently breaking the stems and 
slowly drawing apart the ends. Long pieces of the spiral filament are 
thus uncoiled. From these filaments are prepared those wicks, which, 
on great and solemn religious occasions, are burnt in the lamps of the 
Hindoos, and placed before the shrines of their gods. Similar wicks 
are formed of the spiral tubes of some of the NympHmas, but are not 
thought so sacred. 
Of the N. speciosum, Dr CaNDOLLE makes two varieties :—}. 
Tamara , Staminibus exterioribus sterilibus apice dilatatis alatis obcor- 
datis, appendice ex emarginatura orta; a native of Malabar;—and 9. 
cum, petalis interioribus vix externis minoribus obtusis, the N. 
aspicum of Fiscu. MSS., and a native of the embouchures of the 
Volga, near Astrachan. Judging from this character, as well as from 
Specimens in the Herbarium, received from Dr. Fiscuer, this latter 
does not seem to be different from the plant here figured. 
For an accurate description and classical history of this plant, we 
refer, with great satisfaction, to the description’ accompanying the 
figure at tab. 903 of this work. Of its close affinity with NELUMBIUM 
oe (Bot. Mag. tab. 2753,) we have already spoken, in describing 
t plant : I may further add, after a careful examination of the two 
species, that the anthers of N. speciosum are terminated by an appen- 
dage very little different from that of N. luteum ; and that, except in 
the colour of the blossoms, and the more muricated petioles and pedun- 
‘ag 4 re: the two can scarcely be distinguished by any 
__ Tas.3916. Very reduced drawi F por. 
Gis Gs wena or chaprail wing of the Plant. Tab. 3917. Flower and por. 
