176 MR. SPRUCE'S BOTANICAL EXCURSION 
colour, and the enormous ribs with which it is strengthened, increasing 
the similarity. I know not whether I can add anything to the ela- 
borate descriptions which have been given, by yourself and Dr. Lindley, 
of the Victoria, but the following observations, made on the fresh plant, 
may be interesting. 
I could find no prostrate trunk, as in the other Nympheacee. The 
root is central, the thickness of a man’s leg, penetrating deep into the 
mud (we could not dig to the bottom of it with our trésados), and. 
sending out fascicles of whitish radicles, about twenty-five, from below 
the base of each petiole, the thickness of a finger and two feet or more 
in length. The radicles are imperforate, and give out here and there a 
very few slender fibres. 
Leaf orbicular, but emarginate at the extremity of the shortest radius, 
the margin suddenly inflexed at nearly a right angle, so as to resemble 
the brim of a Spanish sombréro. Stomates numerous, margined with 
red. The underside of the leaf is of a crimson colour, with minute 
yellow spots, and it is everywhere, on the ribs and on their interstices, 
pubescent with minute, pallid, jointed, inflexed hairs. Petiole slightly ex- 
centric, with two or three wide perforations near the centre, and with 
several others which become more minute as they approach the circum- 
ference. The peduncles are similarly perforated. 
Sepals usually four, sometimes five, nearly equal, and sometimes four 
larger and two interposed and opposite smaller ones ; at first green exter- 
nally, but gradually changing to dull purple. Petals at first white; the 
innermost alone haying on their inner face a few streaks and spots of red, 
afterwards changing to light lake-red, and finally to purplish-red, exactly 
the colour of one of our oldest double red roses. The process of bleach- 
ing commences with the edges of the outer petals, and in decaying the 
whole flower rapidly turns to a dull yellow. 
Anthers from the first of a bright lake-red. The lobes of the stigma 
are, when young, of a beautiful purple on their anterior edge and upper 
part, the lower part being vermilion ; afterwards they turn yellow. 
At the angles of the air-cells of the radicles, and in the lobes of the 
stigma, are certain bodies resembling fascines, consisting of slender 
spines standing out on every side from a short central column. Pos- 
. sibly other tissues of the plant contain these bodies, but I could not 
detect them in the leaf-stalk. 
From the same root I have seen flowers uniting the characters of 
