in THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



o 



have been joined. Leaves of this kind are strong enough t 



» 

 sustain the weight of good sized children. In their tropical 



home the great leaves form an almost impassible barrier to 



navigation. Tropical birds are said to wander over them in 



large companies searching for food. 



The flowers, in keeping with the size of the leaves, are 

 often more than four feet in circumference. Usually they are 

 somewhat smaller but blossoms with a diameter of a foot are 

 common. The plant rarely Mowers in the temperate zone, 

 but may be induced to do so by keeping it at the proper 

 temperature. It appears to have first flowered outside of the 

 tropics at Philadelphia. The blossoms are like those of the 

 common water lily in shape. Outside they are pure white and 

 shade to a deep pink within. 



The group to which Victoria regia belongs is not a large 

 one, but it contains a number of interesting plants. The 

 American lotus (Nelumbium lutciiiii) has much in common 

 with its relative of the Amazon. Like it, the leaves are cir- 

 cular with the petiole in the center, and the flowers are often as 

 large as a quart bowl. The pink species so often cultivated in 

 parks is the Egyptian lotus ( N. speciosum ) the only other mem- 

 ber of the genus. 



The water lily family (Nymphaeaceae) has always been 

 something of a puzzle to botanists. It is ordinarily regarded 

 as a dicotyledon, but some, on account of the structure of the 

 plants, favor tranferring to the monocotyledons. In most 

 books it holds a place low in the scale being assigned to the 

 order Ranales which includes, besides the type family Ranun- 

 culaceae, the Magnoliaceae, the Berberidaceae, the Calycan- 

 thaceae and several others. A more than passing resemblance 

 may be found in the blossoms of the whole group. This is 

 especially striking in the flowers of the peony, the mandrake, 

 the magnolia, and the calycanthus. 



