324 WILD FLOWERS OF 



styled "lord of the Lotos." With its light foliage 

 and large poppy-like rose-coloured flowers it is stated 

 by recent travellers to spread itself over the city lake 

 in the famed valley of Kashmir, presenting a spec- 

 tacle of singular beauty. Its flowers and leaves are 

 never covered by water. Mr. WEBNE speaks of the 

 Lotos as adorning the White Nile, shining with great 

 luxuriance like a double lily. Its stellated flower 

 opens with the rising of the sun, and closes when it 

 sets. The same traveller remarks that the leaves 

 " dark green above and red brown below, with a flat 

 serrated border, have a magnificent transparent vein ; 

 but become so shrivelled, even during the damp night, 

 that in the morning I scarcely recognized those which 

 I had overnight laid close to my bed on the shore. 

 The ancient Egyptians must therefore have been quick 

 in offering up the Lotos." 



The blue Lotos (Nymphaa cosrulea), with "azure 

 skirts and vases of gold," a native of Kashmir and 

 Persia, has also been often sung in eastern hyperbole, 

 as a fit couch for the repose of the gods; and in China 

 and Japan, various beautiful species of this favourite 

 genus are cultivated in the tanks and ponds, for their 

 beauty and delightful fragrance. 



In the present day a new and interesting member 

 of the tribe of Water-lilies has been brought before 

 botanical notice, of extraordinary beauty and of 

 dimensions previously unheard of in the vegetable 

 kingdom except in the family of Palms, the leaves 

 measuring above eighteen feet and the flower nearly 

 four feet in circumference. This is the celebrated 

 Victoria regia. HJEFKE was the first European bota- 

 nist who met with this vegetable wonder during his 



