certain ; it is probable however that it owed its celebrity 

 more to the veneration in which it was held on account of 

 the typical and allegorical life made of it than to its excellence 

 as an article of diet. In Hungary the roots, though not ap- 

 plied to the nounfhment of man, are greedily devoured by 

 the fwine. Perhaps the feeds and roots of ouv own white 

 water Lily are little if at all inferior. The account recorded 

 by Pliny of the' flowers retiring under the water during the 

 night, fo far as to be out of reach of the hand, we conclude 

 to be one of the idle (lories with which travellers are pleafed 

 to amufe the credulous. 



Our plant is doubtlefs of the fame fpecies as the one which 

 flowered at the Marquis of Bland ford's laft fummer, which 

 gave occafion to a learned difcuffion on the fubjeci from the 

 pen of that nobleman, whofe ardour in botanical purfuits gives 

 him a juft claim to have a genus named after him ; and it 

 is with pleafure we hear that this honour has been conferred 

 by the Preiident of the Linnean Society. We fuppofe, but 

 this is not mentioned in his account, that the Marquis's plant 

 was produced from ^Egyptian feeds ; ours we received from 

 that venerable and indefatigable cultivator Mr. Loddiges, of 

 Hackney, who raifed it from feeds he procured from the 

 hot fprings in Hungary, where this Nymphzea flourifhes in a 

 heat equal to 95 of Farenheit. It was fown laft fpring in 

 a pan of water plunged into a tan pit under a melon frame, 

 and our drawing was taken in September. The firft leaves are 

 arrow-fhaped, entire at the edges, and totally different from 

 thofe which accompany the flowering plant. 



The flowers were fomewhat fweet-fcented, but neither fo 

 ftrong nor fo agreeable as thofe of Nymph ,ea carnlea. The 

 Marquis remarks that they open in the evening and clofe 

 about ten in the morning, and the like was obferved at Kew 

 in apparently the fame Ipecies, which bloflbmed there laft 

 fummer and was raifed from Eaft-Indian feeds fent by Dr. 

 Roxburgh, but this circumftance certainly did not take place 

 in the one we had, whilft it was in our poffeflion, and expofed 

 to the temperature of the atmofphere. 



The form of the ftigma, fo variable in this genus, perhaps 

 affords the beft characters to diftinguifh the fpecies ; in ours 

 this is a large cup-like depreflion in the crown of the germen, 

 in the centre of the cup is a round button from which di- 

 verge about twenty rays, correfponding to the number of cells 

 within, thefe rays are not very vifible till they approach the 

 margin of the cup where they are elevated, and have incurved 

 tips. 



