6 
for it, he immediately concluded that he had at length lighted 
on what we had been so long in search of. He collected 
specimens of the flowers and other parts of the plant, and brought 
them to my residence in Kingston. I doubt not every cultivator 
of our “ fair science”’ must sympathise in the pleasure with which 
I regarded this beautiful Water-Lily. How much more delightful 
would be the surprise to encounter it in its native solitudes, 
where the hand of Nature has planted and reared it, amid the 
mangroves and the tall reeds, overshadowing with its magni- 
ficent leaves and flowers the still waters of the lagoon, recalling 
the description of Una in the Fairy Queen :— 
Her angel-face 
As the great eye of heaven shined bright 
And made a sunshine in the shady place.” 
Some general remarks on the Fuora ov Cryon ; 
BY 
GEORGE GARDNER, Esq., F.L.S. 
Director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Paradenia, Ceylon. 
AutHouen Ceylon is celebrated for the luxuriant vegetation by 
which it is covered, the plants which compose it are less known 
to botanists than those, perhaps, of any other portion of India of 
equal extent. While the history and uses of the vegetable pro- 
ductions of the possessions of the East India Company, and most 
of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, have been given to the 
world by modern botanists, those of Ceylon are at the present 
day nearly as little understood in Europe as they were one 
hundred years ago, when Linneus published his “ Flora Zey- 
lanica,” founded on collections which had been made in the 
{sland by Hermann, a Dutch botanist, about seventy years be- 
fore. It is true that during the last few years the descriptions 
of several Ceylon plants have been published in different scien- 
tific periodical publications, both by Indian and Buropean bo- 
tanists ; but although a botanical institution has been maintained 
in the colony, at the expense of Government, for upwards of 
the last thirty years, those who have superintended it have done 
almost nothing either for their own credit or the honour of the 
establishment. Since the publication of the little book of Lin- 
neus, the only work which has been produced on Ceylon botany 
is the “Catalogue of Plants growing in Ceylon,” published in 
