waters in the North-Eastern United States, and may be the 
plant alluded to by Nuttall as the European N. alba, with 
which it agrees in being nearly scentless ; it is described as 
having the leaves green or yellowish beneath, but in our 
cultivated specimens they were of a pale dirty-purple. 
The rootstock prolongs indefinitely, but the leaf-bearing tip 
alone is vigorous, the old part decaying as the new elongates. 
The tubers, which are one to four inches long, when fully 
formed break away from the rootstock, and float about till 
they are stranded and germinate; they resemble those of 
the Jerusalem Artichoke, and as many as thirty have been 
counted on six inches of rootstock. In shallow water both 
leaves and flowers rise high above the surface; in deep 
water the ripening fruit is drawn to the very bottom by 
the spiral coiling of the peduncle. Cattle devour the 
leaves; as do deer, which leave the woods at night to feed — 
on them. The Royal Gardens are indebted to the Botanic 
Garden of Harvard University, U.S., for tubers, which 
flowered in July and August. 
Descr. Rootstock creeping, bearing oblong tubers singly 
or in clusters along its length. Leaves often very large, — 
circular, eight to eighteen inches in diameter, sometimes 
retuse with contracted sides, margin entire or undulate ; 
nerves twelve to fifteen radiating from the base on each 
side of the midrib, and five to seven from the latter ; lobes — 
approximate or meeting, acute. Flowers four to seven 
inches in diameter, slightly odorous when first opened, 
smelling of apples or of Vanilla (according to various 
authors), soon inodorous. Sepals and petals as in N. alba 
and odorata. Anthers long, the outer with cuspidate tips. 
Seeds with a usually incomplete aril, rarely with none or a 
complete one.—J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, vertical section of ovary, disk, and stamens of WV. tuberosa ; 2, ditto of 
N. odorata, both of the natural size; 3 and 4, front and back view of stamen of 
NV, tuberosa ; 5, petaloid stamen of ditto :—all enlarged. 
~ 
