Tas. 4675. 
LILIUM  GiGantTevum. 
Gigantic Lily. 
Nat. Ord. Littace®.—Hexanpria Monoeyntia. 
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tas. 4561.) 
Liztum (Cardiocrinum) giganteum ; elatum robustum, foliis inferioribus longe 
_ petiolatis amplissimis cordato-rotundatis brevi-acuminatis, superioribus sen- 
sim minoribus late ovatis minus petiolatis, floribus nutantibus in racemum 
longum bracteatis dispositis, sepalis obtusis apice patentibus. 
Liurum giganteum. Wail. Tent. Fl. Nep. p. 21. t. 12, 13. (eacl. syn.) Roem. et 
Sch. Syst. Veg. v.71. p. 419. Spreng. Syst. Veg. v. 4. p. 342.  Zuecar, i 
Sieb. Fl. Jap. v. 1. p. 35 (in note). Kunth, Enum. Plant. p. 268. 
Liur10M cordifolium. Don, Prodr. Fl. Nep. p. 52. (excl. syn.) 
The discovery of this Prince of Lilies, we owe, as we do so 
much of Indian and especially northern Indian botanical novelty, 
.to Dr. Wallich*, who detected it in moist shady places on Sheo- 
pore in Nepal. ‘This majestic Lily,” writes Dr. Wallich, 
“ srows sometimes to a size which is quite astonishing ; a fruit- 
bearing specimen of the whole plant, which is destined for the 
Museum of the Hon. East India Company, measures full ten feet 
~ from the base of the stem to its apex. The flowers are propor- 
tionably large and delightfully fragrant, not unlike those of the 
common white Lily.” Nor does it degenerate in cultivation ; 
witness the specimen from which our drawing was made, a por- 
tion of which was obligingly communicated to us through Dr. 
Balfour, by the Messrs. Cunningham, Comely Bank Nursery, 
Edinburgh, in July, 1852, accompanied by a full-length repre- 
sentation made on the spot. ‘These showed the flowering 
plant to have attained a height of ten feet in one season ; the 
flower portion occupying twenty inches. Such a raceme of 
flowers, accompanied by leaves measuring ten to twelve inches 
long and eight inches broad, must have afforded a striking 
spectacle, and which has only yet been witnessed at the nur- 
sery just mentioned, where the plant was raised from seeds 
* Who does not, among the many friends of Dr. Wallich, rejoice to learn that 
this distinguished and most liberal botanist has been recently honoured by oe 
Danish Majesty in being made a Knight Commander of the Order of Dannebrog = 
OCTOBER Ist, 1852. 
