A) 
as existing in any other of the species. It is very distinct in 
this, and I have no doubt will be found to be equally so in the 
other species. 
In the description of the embryo, it is said to be composed 
of the rudiments of the future leaf, flower, and stem. Here I 
differ from Geertner, who regards what I have described as the 
rudiments of the flower and flower-stalk, as belonging to a second 
undeveloped leaf. To this I object, that it would be a very 
unusual circumstance, where there are the rudiments of two cor- 
responding organs, that there should be so much dissimilarity 
and disproportion between them. On the contrary, as a leaf 
and a flower invariably arise from each joint of the stem, it is 
most probable that I am correct in the description I have given. 
This interesting plant was first made known to botanists by 
Dr. Patrick Browne, an Irish physician, who resided for some 
time in this island, and, as it would appear from his writings, 
left it in 1754. During his residence, he devoted his attention 
to the natural history of the Island. He published the result of 
his observations in a folio volume, entitled “ The Civil and Natural 
History of Jamaica, by Patrick Browne, M.D., illustrated with 
forty-nine Copper-plates, by Ehret, London, 1789.” He informs 
us, in page 343, that the Nr.umsrum, (or as he styles it 
Nympu#a) the Hgyptian Bean, or Great Water-lily, was, m his 
time, pretty common in the lagoons beyond the Ferry. “It 
grows, he informs us, “in loose boggy ground, where the leaves 
may stand in open air, while the roots and lower part of the 
stems are plentifully supplied with moisture.” Dr. Browne 
appears to have been under the impression that our plant was 
identical with the sacred Water-ean of the Egyptians. Since 
his time, the plant appears from some cause to have become 
more scarce, and to have escaped the notice of the different 
botanists who have visited this Island. It seems very unlikely that 
Swartz, Bertero, as well as many others, should have met with 
it and passed it over without some notice. 
Since my arrival in the Island, I took every opportunity of 
searching for the plant. Dr. M’Nab, also, and Mr. Purdie, the 
collector for the Kew Gardens, now of Trinidad, frequently visited 
the locality on a similar errand, passing through the canals of the 
lagoon in a boat, without any success. arly in August, James 
Dundas, Esq., (the manager of Taylor’s Caymanas Estate,) while 
carrying out some improvements connected with the draining of 
the land of that property in the vicinity of the lagoon, unex- 
pectedly came upon this beautiful plant, and, as he had on 
former occasions, assisted in the kindest manner, our searches 
