Nelumbium.  vpouyYANDRIA POLYGYNIA. 647 
nate, truncate receptacle ; one-celled, one-seeded ; attach- 
ment (of the ovula) superior. Seeds many, lodged as 
in the germ. Embryo inverse, without perisperm or vi- 
tellus. 
N. speciosum. Willd. 2. 1258. 
Root creeping. Leaves suborbicular, peltate, entire. 
“Peduncles and petioles prickly. Flowers many-petalled. 
Tamara, Rheed, Mal. 11. ¢. 30. 
Padma, Asiat. Res. 4, 286, 
' Sungs. Pudma, Muhotpula. — aie 
The red variety, Ruktotpula, Kokunuda. 
Beng. Rukta pudma. 
Sungs. The white sort, Poondureeka, Sitambuja. 
Beng. Shwet pudma. 
Pers. Nilufu. . 
Thave met with only two sorts on the coast of Coroman- 
del, one with rose-coloured flowers, the other with flowers 
perfectly white, and since that time a third variety has 
been brought from China with smaller rosy flowers. They 
grow in such sweet water lakes, &c. as do not dry up 
during the driest season, and on the coast, flower all 
the year round. In Bengal they flower during the hot 
season, April, May and June, and ripen their seed about 
the close of the rains. Root creeping in mud, jointed 
at various distances, in general, fully as thick as the 
- fore-finger, of uncertain length, but it must be very great ; 
smooth, generally tinged with red, perforated internally 
with many pores. The joints in old plants are often swell- 
ed into tubulosities of various sizes; sometimes as large 
as a man’s fist; from them issue many fungous fibres, 
and from the upper and the interior part of these tubulosi- 
ties issue one, two, or more leaves and flowers ; their inser- 
tions being surrounded with spathe-like sheaths. Leaves. 
radical, from the joints, petioled, peltate, floating on the | 
* water, transversely broad-oval, entire, except at that 
* 
