4. 
plant by James Dundas, Esq. Dr. M’Fadyen was not long im 
sending to us roots, and seeds, and beautifully dried specimens 
of this rarity, and in printing, for private distribution, a full 
description with an accurate, coloured figure (on a large folio 
size, as the subject truly deserved), and a second plate of 
analysis. It must be acknowledged, indeed, judging from a 
comparison of dried specimens in our Herbarium, that it is very 
closely allied to the Nelumbium luteum of the United States : 
and if, on further investigation, the two should prove to be 
identical, we must observe that Patrick Browne’s name has the 
right of priority, although not quite unobjectionable, seeing that 
it is more frequent in North America than in Jamaica. The 
specific identity of the two, however, we are not now discussing ; 
nor do we think it necessary here to give the full and excellent 
description of the plant from Dr. M’Fadyen’s Memoir: but his 
remarks are well worthy of being introduced into the supple- 
mentary pages of this Magazine. 
“T have followed Dr. Lindley,” Dr. M’Fadyen remarks, “in 
describing as a horizontal submersed stem, what others have 
regarded as the root. Although it grows under the surface of 
the water, it is free from the mud or soft earth, in which the 
proper roots or fibrillee are immersed. It may be remarked 
that the mternal structure of the stem more resembles that of 
the flower-stalk than that of the petiole: the former supporting 
more important and complicated organs than the latter. It may 
also be noticed that these several parts resemble in their internal 
structure, composed of cellular tissue connecting a number of 
large air tubes, that of the stem of the CasomBacra or Water 
shields. In plants of this order the number of air tubes amounts 
to 15 or 16. On the other hand, in the CasomBaces there 
are no spiral vessels, whereas they are remarkably distinct in the 
NELUMBACES. 
“T have no doubt the broad rufescent band which I have de- 
scribed as traversing the under-surface of the leaf, corresponds 
to that portion which is exposed, when the leaf, in the early 
period of its growth, is folded up previous to its expansion. 
“The peculiarities of the nervation in the leaf are not so dis- 
tinctly delineated, as they might have been. The broad rufescent 
band above alluded to, is also indistinctly indicated. It is very 
obvious, however, in the recent specimen. 
“The prolonged portion of the filament is in this species linear 
and incrassated. In JV. speciosum it is linear; and in NV. luteum 
club-shaped. 
«The abortive cell of the carpel, has not as yet been described | 
