50 THE FLORIST. 



OUVIRANDRA FENESTRALIS. 



It is more than thirty years ago, we are told, since the Kew Museum 

 was enriclied by specimens in alcohol of this most remarkable water 

 plant, gathered by Professor Bojer in Madagascar, and it is stated that 

 it was even known to botanists some thirty years previous to that. 

 Singular to say, however, no living plants of it reached this country 

 until last year, when a considerable number was brought home from 

 Madagascar by the Rev. Mr. Ellis, who had visited that region in the 

 capacity of a missionary, and, fortunately for horticulturists at home, 

 had carried with him, together with an ardent love of botanical enter- 

 prise, drawings and other information respecting this beautiful Ouvi- 

 randra, which has been aptly described as " one of the most curious of 

 nature's vegetable productions." 



Mr. Ellis having succeeded so well in the introduction of this much 

 desired novelty, liberally enriched the collections at Kew, Regent's 

 Park, and Chiswick, by the presentation of specimens to each, and the 

 whole of his remaining stock passed into the hands of Messrs. Veitch k 

 Son, of Chelsea and Exeter, in whose establishments, it may be grati- 

 fying to learn, it has thriven most satisfactorily. 



In its native stations, the plant is described as growing on the 

 margins of running streams. The root, or rhizome, is about an inch 

 in thickness and six or nine inches lo g, and is valuable to the natives, 

 who, at certain seasons of the year, gatlier it as an article of food, the 

 fleshy rhizome, when cooked, yielding a farinaceous substance resembling 

 a Yam ; hence, it has been called Water Yam. The plant, Mr. Ellis 

 states, is attached to the sides of the stream in which it grows by 

 numbers of fibres, which penetrate and adhere firmly to the loam or 

 clay of the banks. Entangled among these roots were large quantities 

 of decayed leaves and other vegetable substances, from which the plant 

 probably derived some portion of its nutriment ; though, from the 

 bubbles of air found under the leaves, it seemed to possess the property 

 of decomposing a portion of the water in which it grew. Mr. Ellis was, 

 however, informed that it also grew in places which were dry at certain 

 seasons of the year; that the leaves then died down, but the root, buried 

 in the mud, retained its vitality, and when the water returned fresh 

 leaves burst forth, and that the natives spoke of it as very tenacious of 

 life. 



