THE NELUMBIUM SPECIOSUM. 



duced into English collections, it is there comparatively scarce, and retained with 

 great difficulty. Judging from a late number of the Revue Horticole, it is a rarity 

 even in the more temperate latitudes of France, as it details the sensation its first 

 flowering created in Paris. To American cultivators it has been hitherto compara- 

 tively unknown. 



The seeds from which our plants were raised, were procured for Mr. Cope by Mr. 

 Ezra Bowen, of Philadelphia, while on a voyage to Calcutta last winter. I divided 

 the seed into two sets : those of one I filed through the outer coating at one end, until 

 the fleshy part of the seed was just discernible ; the other I sowed just as they were, 

 plunging the pans of seed in water kept from 80° to 90''. The former germinated 

 in about ten days. Soon after they were separately potted, and made a very rapid 

 growth. Early in spring our first experiment with it was made, in a large box plunged 

 in our Victoria tank. Your readers will remember that an essential part of our suc- 

 cessful treatment of the Victoria, lies in obscuring the glass. We soon found that 

 the Nelumhium disliked this shade ; and so, on the 20th of May, we made a trial of 

 it in the full sun, in a tank out of doors, wherein the Victoria had been unsuccessfully 

 tried the year previous. This tank is oval, about fifteen feet long in its widest diameter, 

 and the water in it being about three feet deep, constantly renewed by the waste water 

 from the overflow of our hydraulic reservoir. The water was 65°, in the mud at the 

 bottom of which we planted three very weak plants. For more than a month they 

 made little progress. As the weather grew warmer their growth became rapid in pro- 

 portion, till by the beginning of July the tank was completely covered by a profusion 

 of fine foliage, some of the leaves reaching two feet in diameter. Soon after this the 

 amphibious (excuse the term) leaves appeared, like so many inverted parasols, rising 

 from two to three feet out of the water ; and connected with them appeared the 

 flower buds, rising erect out of the water in the same manner. On the 14th of 

 September the first blossom fully expanded, being a little less than four months from 

 the time the scarcely-rooted plants were planted there. The flowers are less evanes- 

 cent than the Victoria, remaining in perfection several days. They are of a delicate 

 rose color, declining gradually to a white as it approaches the center ; while high in 

 the middle rises its inverted cone-like receptacle, with about eighteen stigmas equally 

 distributed over its. flat yellow surface. When laid out, the diameter of our flower is 

 about nine inches ; but the fragrance which travelers speak of is scarcely perceptible. 

 It will undoubtedly become one of our most popular plants for open air culture. I 

 should not be surprised to find, in a few years, a Nelumhium tank an essential in every 

 garden of any pretensions. 



The question is yet undecided, whether the roots will be able to withstand the 

 severity of our winters. I have every confidence that they will. The mean tempera- 

 ture of the coldest month in the year in Pekin, where this plant abounds, is, accord- 

 inof to Baron Humboldt, 24.62, while that of the latitude'in which I write is estimated 

 as high as 32. "72. The probability is that the only care requisite will be to place the 

 roots so deep as to be out of the reach of actual frost. 



It was a singular coincidence, that on the very day this lovely blossom first opened 



