13. VICTORIA regia. 



Great interest having been excited by the stories told in 

 the newspapers of this extraordinary plant, the following 

 account of it has been taken from a memoir upon the 

 subject, of which twenty-five copies only have been privately 

 circulated. Some Botanical explanations concerning the 

 genus, not introduced into the original memoir, are here 

 given from such materials as I possess. 



" An undoubted addition to a tribe of plants, at once so 

 beautiful and so circumscribed as that of the Nymphs, or 

 Water-lilies, would be an event of interest even if it only 

 related to a distinctly marked species of some well known 

 genus. But when the subject of the discovery is not only 

 a new genus, but a plant of the most extraordinary beauty,' — 

 fragrant, — and of dimensions previously unheard of in the 

 whole vegetable kingdom, except in the colossal family of 

 Palms, an interest must then attach to it, which can rarely 

 be possessed by a novelty in natural history. 



" Such a plant is the subject of the following notice ; a 

 Water-lily, exhibiting a new type of structure, of the most 

 noble aspect, of the richest colours, and so gigantic that its 

 leaves measure above eighteen feet, and its flower nearly 

 four feet, in circumference. It was met with in British 

 Guayana,in lat. 4° 30' N., long. 58° W. nearly, by Mr. Robert 

 H. Schomburgk, a German gentleman, travelling on account 

 of the Royal Geographical Society, assisted by Her Majesty's 

 Government, for the purpose of examining the natural pro- 

 ductions of that part of the British dominions. In an ac- 

 count of the plant, transmitted to the Geographical Society, 

 Mr. Schomburgk speaks thus of his discovery. 



' It was on the first of January this year, while contend- 

 ing with the difficulties nature imposed 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 their paddling, we were shortly after- 

 wards opposite the object which had raised my cariosity — 

 a vegetable wonder ! All calamities were forgotten ; I felt 



B. Feb.lSm. c 



