the American Botanist 



VOL. XXIII 



JOLIET, ILL., MAY, 1917 



No. 2 



J*t thousand tints of misty green 

 u/ithin the vernai groves are seen 

 cffhere snowy dogwood blossoms star 

 ijhe deepening shadows, while afar 

 Uhe redbud flushes copse and glade 

 u/ith burgeoning summer' s accolade. 



THE GREAT WATER LILY 



By Willard N. Clute. 



r^ ROBABLY the most gigantic leaves in the world are those 

 of the great water lily, Victoria regia, which grows in the 

 quiet waters of northern Brazil and Guiana. Paul Marcoy, 

 an early traveller claims to have measured some that were 

 more than twenty-four feet in circumference. In temperate 

 regions, where the plant may he grown in warm pools, the 

 leaves are much smaller, but even then may reach a diameter 

 of three or four feet. An interesting peculiarity about them 

 is the fact that the edges are turned up for several inches all 

 around, the leaves thus presenting the appearance of large 

 shallow pans. The turned up edges serve a practical purpose 

 and keep the upper surface of the leaf from getting wet. 



Although old leaves are, as so frequently pictured, quite 

 circular, the first leaves are narrow and elongated, the next 

 are heart-shaped like ordinary water lily leaves and only the 

 older ones are peltate with the petiole in the center. Even in 

 the old leaves a distinct line shows where the lobes of the leaves 



Ud»tAltY 



