Nelumhium. polyandria polygynia. 647 



n ate, truncate receptacle ; one-celled, one-seeded; attach- 

 ment (of the ovula) superior. Seeds many, lodged as 

 in the germ. Embryo inverse, without perlsperm or vi- 

 tellus. 



N. speciosum. Willd. 2. 1258. 



Root creeping^. Leaves suborbicular, peltate, entire. 

 Peduncles and petioles prickly. Flowers niany-petalled. 



Tamara. RJieed. Mul. M. t. 30. 



Padma. Asiat. Res. 4. 286. 



Sungs. Pifdma, Mj/hotpwlrt. 



The red variety, Ruktot^ula, Kokunuda. 



Beng. HvkXa pwdma. 



Sungs. The white sort, PoondMreeka, Sitambwjrt. 



Beng. Shwet pudma. 



Pers. Nilufu. 



1 have met with only two sorts on the coast of Coroman- 

 del, one with rose-coloured flowers, the other witli flowers 

 perfectly white, and since that time a third variety has 

 been brought from China with smaller rosy flowers. They 

 grow in such sweet w ater lakes, &c. as do not dry up 

 during the driest season, and on the coast, flower all 

 the year round. In Bengal they flower during the hot 

 season, April, May and June, and ripen their seed about 

 the close of the rains. Root creeping in mud, jointed 

 at various distances, m general, fully as thick as the 

 fore-finger, of uncertain length, but it must be very great; 

 smooth, generally tinged with red, perforated internally 

 with many pores. The j(»ints in old plants are often swell- 

 ed into tubulosities of various sizes ; sometimes as large 

 as a man's fist ; from them issue many fungous fibres, 

 and from the upper and the interior part of these tubulosi- 

 ties issue one, two, or more leaves and flowers ; their inser- 

 tions being surrounded with spathe-like sheaths. Leaves 

 radical, from the joints, petioled, peltate, floating on the 

 water, transversely broad-oval, entire, except at that 



