PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 447 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY. 

 Sept. 7.— J. E. Gray, Esq., F.R.S., Pres., in the chair.— The Secretary read a 

 communication from Mr. R. H. Schomburgh, Corresponding Member of the Geo- 

 graphical Society, dated New Amsterdam, Berbice, May 11, 1837, on a new- 

 genus allied to the Nymph ule or " Water-lily " (Nymp/icea), named Victoria 

 regalis, by permission of her Majesty. The communication was accompanied by 

 magnificent drawings of the plant, one half the natural size, which may be seen 

 at the rooms of the Society on any of the nights of meetings. The following ac- 

 count is extracted from Mr. Schomburgh's paper: — " It was on Jan 1. this year, 

 while contending with the difficulties Nature opposed in different forms to our 

 progress up the river Berbice (in British Guiana), that we arrived at a point 

 where the river expanded and formed a currentless basin : some object on the 

 southern extremity of this basin attracted my attention — it was impossible to 

 form any idea what it could be, and animating the crew to increase the rate of 

 paddling, shortly afterwards we were opposite the object which had raised my 

 curiosity, — a vegetable wonder 1 All calamities were forgotten ; I felt as a bo- 

 tanist, and felt myself rewarded. A gigantic leaf, from five to six feet in dia- 

 meter, salver-shaped, with a broad rim of a light green above, and a vivid crim- 

 son below, resting upon the water : quite in character with the wonderful leaf 

 was the luxuriant flower, consisting of many hundred petals, passing in alternate 

 tints from pure white to rose and pink. The smooth water was covered with 

 them ; I rowed from one to another, and observed always something new to 

 admire. The leaf on its surface is of a bright green, in form orbiculate, with 

 this exception opposite its axis, where it is slightly bent in : its diameter mea- 

 sured from five to six feet : around the margin extended a rim, about three to 

 five inches high, on the inside light green like the surface of the leaf, on the 

 outside, like the leaf's lower part, of a bright crimson. The stem of the flower 

 is an inch thick near the calyx, and is studded with sharp elastic prickles, about 

 three quarters of an inch in length. The calyx is four-leaved, each upwards of 

 seven inches in length, and three in breadth at the base ; they are thick, white 

 inside, reddish-brown and prickly outside. The diameter of the calyx is twelve 

 to thirteen inches : on it rests the magnificent flower, which, when fully deve- 

 loped, covers completely the calyx with its hundred petals. When it first opens, 

 it is white with pink in the middle, which spreads over the whole flower the 

 more it advances in age, and it is generally found the next day of a pink colour ; 

 as if to enhance its beauty, it is sweet-scented : like others of its tribe it possesses 

 a fleshy disk, and petals and stamens pass gradually into each other, and many 

 petaloid leaves may be observed which have vestiges of an anther. We met 

 them afterwards frequently, and the higher we advanced the more gigantic they 



3 n2 



