326 WILD FLOWERS OF 



hundred-petalled corolla. This beautiful flower when 

 it first unfolds, is white with a pink centre ; the colour 

 spreads as the bloom increases in age, and at a day 

 old, the whole is rose-coloured. As if to add to the 

 charm of this noble Water-lily, it diffuses a sweet 

 scent." 



It now appears that this imperial flower occurs in 

 all the great rivers tributary to the Amazon, often 

 covering the waters with its gigantic foliage, compared 

 by an observer to enormous floating tea-boards, (from 

 the margin being turned up all round) to the extent 

 of many miles, its large boat-shaped leaves forming a 

 resting-place for the numerous tribes of aquatic birds 

 that frequent those humid regions. It has also been 

 observed on the still waters of the La Plata and 

 Essequibo. It has now been successfully cultivated 

 in England, both at Kew and Chatsworth, where, at 

 the latter place, it flowered in a tank purposely con- 

 structed for it, in 1849. Professor LINDLEY has thus 

 described the splendid corolla of the Victoria Lily. 

 " The flower itself when it first opens, resembles the 

 white Water-lily, of a dazzling white, with its fine 

 leathery petals forming a goblet of the most elegant 

 proportions ; but as the day advances, it gradually 

 expands till it becomes nearly flat ; towards evening a 

 faint blush becomes visible in the centre, the petals 

 fall back more and more, and at last, about six o'clock, 

 a sudden change occurs ; in a few minutes the petals 

 arrange themselves in the form of a snow-white 

 hemisphere whose edge reposes on the water, and the 

 centre rises majestically on the summit, producing a 

 diadem of rosy points. It then constitutes one of the 

 most elegant objects in nature. Shortly after, the 



