14 
Roxb .; concave at the top, the edge 
alone slightly and very obscurely lob^, 
and this concavity representing the 
stigma, destitute of central projecting 
column. No style nor evident stigmas. 
Truit a nearly round berr}-, swelling 
out in various places, by the growth of 
the seeds within, and crowned with the 
connivent persistent sepals. 
cells, immersed in a pulpy substance 
and partly below the hollow, the pa- 
rietes of which have reticulated funiculi, 
bearing 10—12 o^mles ;—upon the edge 
of this cavih', in a circle within the sta¬ 
mens, are situated as many very large 
stignias. 
Fruit a turbinate truncated berry, 
with a deep hoUow disc and persistent 
central coliunn, even and regular on the 
outside. 
We do not attempt to contrast the stnicture of the seeds; but 
the above distinctive characters are surely abundantly sufticient 
to prove the correctness of Dr. Lindley’s views, in establishing 
the genus Victoria. 
Descr. Aquatic? Hoot perennial?“ large and tuberous, provided 
with numerous filiform, or cylindrical fibres, which abound along 
their whole length mth air-tubes. The tuber resembles the thick 
rhizoma of some Jspidium, and is of a brown colour extem.nlly, 
white within, but when cut through the internal substance soon 
changes to purple,” (Schomburgk in litt.). Stetn none. Petiole ,9 
long, terete, radical, clothed w'ith copious prickles j “ they assume 
a diagonal direction when the water is low, and rise with the 
water so as to be perpendicular, and during the floods, the leaf, 
as well as the petiole, is entirely submerged. (usually) 
floating, of prodigious size, four to six and a half feet in diameter 
(twelve to nineteen feet in circumference), at first oval with a deei> 
narrow cleft or sinus at one end, in age almost exactly orbicular, 
peltate, plane but with a considerable depth of margin, which is 
two to four or five inches broad, and turned up so as to form an 
elevated rim, like that of a tea-tray; the upper side of this vast 
leaf is a full green, marked with numerous reticulations which form 
somewhat quadrangular areolae; the underside deep piuple, some¬ 
times green, according to D’Orbigny, clothed with a short spongy 
pubescence, furnished with copious very prominent flat veins 
radiating from the point of insertion of the petiole and extending 
to, and through^ the raised margin, but there becoming less ele¬ 
vated, till they disappear at the very edge; these are united by other 
deep flattened nerves, and they again by cross ones of less ele¬ 
vation, and all are more or less beset with prickles, varying in 
length, sharp and homy, subulate, that is, swollen at tlie base 
very much like the sting of a nettle in shape. ’ 
Peduncle or scape radical, longer than the petiole and risino- 
above the surface of the water when in flower, terete, prickly 
varying in size, in the recent plant sometimes an inch thick. 
