. 
Mr. Fortune continues to speak highly of its beauty in China, where it is said to be loaded with buff blossoms ' in 
England, however, its wood is easily killed by frost, and it cannot be regarded as being hardier than a Tea Rose.— 
Journal of If or f. Soc, vol. vi. 
2.30. VICTORIA REGIA. 
ears 
©- • -**** wv «v vj ww Mutuality *>HlVil »> I 
at least shall not presume to question. But some attempts have been lately made at effecting an alteration, which he, to 
whom the high honour was assigned of rendering the plant known under the name of Victoria regia, is bound to resist 
Sir William Hooker, in announcing his intention of publishing certain plates by Mr. Fitch, in illustration of the 
plant, speaks of it under the name of Victoria Regin^e. We presume he has been led to do so by trusting to the 
accuracy of a statement made in The Annals of Natural History for August 1850, p. 146 ; to which statement attention 
is now requested. The author, Mr. John Edward Gray, a zoological officer in the British Museum, writes thus — 
« This plant has three names very nearly alike, and two of them appear to have originated from errors of the press 
« Mr Schomburgk, on the 11th of May, 1827, sent, through the Geographical Society, a letter to the Botanical 
Society of London, containing the description of this beautiful Water Lily, accompanied by two drawings and a leaf of 
the plant He proposed to call it NymphwaVietoria, but before the paper was read it was observed that the plant appeared 
to form a genus intermediate between NympJvza and Euryah. The paper was slightly altered to make this change and in 
a Report of the Proceedings of the Botanical Society, which appeared in the Athenaeum Journal of the 9th of September, 
1837 (p. 661), Mr. Schomburgk's description is printed entire, as that of a « new genus of Water Lily named Victoria 
Regina, by permission of Her Majesty.' Mr. Schomburgk's paper was again read, and his drawings exhibited at the 
Meeting of the British Association on the 11th of September, 1837, by me, and I am reported to have 'remarked, that 
Ml 1 6i cr.lr.Tir.irl i-J*.*-** <r***-vnlrl t\^-**^ «, -« ^ ^ _ ?ii_ i , • ** 
form o 
to name it Victoria Regina : f see Report 
description, and an emrravinj? of the T>lant. 
Schomburgk 's 
**. * m mim * ° 9 - rr ~-*v,** *** bUC ucai uuiuucx- ui mat uournai, WHICH 
came out on the 1st of November, 1837 (vol. ii. p. 441, tab. 12). The description was reprinted again, with copies of 
m dra* o r 
t. 1 & 2. So much for the name Victoria 
tan 
. burgh, though the proper name is used in the text. This second name has not been anywhere adopted. In the Index 
to the Athenseum Journal for 1837, p. vii., under the head of Botanical Society, occurs, < Schomburgk on the Victoria 
name 
t r I I afkr the ^ arance °f t7ie ^criptim and figure in the Annals of Zoology and Botany, and after Sir William 
Jardine had returned them Captain Washington, R.N., then Secretary of the Geographical Society, borrowed from the 
Botanical Society the ongmal description and drawing of the plant made by Mr. Schomburgk, with the intention of their 
appearing in the Journal of the Geographical Society with Mr. Schomburgk's Journal of his Travels. Instead of this being 
done, the papers found their way into the hands of Br. Lindley, who printed, for private distribution, twenty-five copies of 
an essay on this plant, entirely derived from Mr. Schomburgk's paper, and illustrated with highly embellished copies of 
Schomburgk s drawing. In the essay he adopted the view which had been stated before the Botanical Society and British 
Association ^a< «t formed a genus intermediate between Euryale and Nymphcea (see Bot. Reg. 1838, p. 11), but he called 
the plant Victoria regia, thus continuing the error of the printer of the Athenaeum. 
« In Miscellaneous Notices attached to the Botanical Register for 1838, p. 9-18, Dr. Lindley having been enabled 
2f?r™A f TTi r? ^ * ^ State ' Whkh Mr - Sch <> mbu rgk had sent home in salt, gave some further 
Z*5 7 V T! P t ? ed aD aCC ° Unt ° f the pIant Under the above name > and ** Mm* «" ^en adopted by 
several succeeding botamsts, who have quoted it as V. regia of Lindley. I think, however, that this account proves that 
undZ7d i"T JlW :> reCdVed ^ mWtU>n ° f Her MajeSty > was the one first U3ed a,ld Published, and has the 
rmm 
are 
c *«*™«~«x urn- /. „ , ° — r «*«w«.«, t ttucuuuu iu mem wiiue comparing wnn jyir. uray s 
L^e" ^^^ &C " "*" » ** *-*".« Appear in the records of the 
1837, A/ y 18_Letter received from Mr. Schomburgk, dated Berbice, 11th May, 1837, announcing the discovery of 
a Water Lily on that river, on the 1st of January, 1837, stating that he has sent two sets of drawings 
Home with a request that, if a new genus, he might be permitted to append to it the name of Victoria. 
July—Three days later, a packet, containing two sets of drawings and descriptions, arrives. 
T„h. OS t u if-u* ° f , the R ° yal Ge °fi r »P hical Societ y communicates on the subject with Sir Henry Wheatley. 
hi, 97 ^ ; T y o. gnifieS the Que6n ' S commands tha * the drawings be sent to the palace for inspection, 
me name V icforil! ' W «eatley, sending drawings, and adding request that the flower may bear 
^llLl^J' 7^ h l *° thG PresideQt > ^^ying Her Majesty's pleasure, that the name of Victoria Regia 
should be affixed to the flower. Drawing returned for the purpose of enabling this to be done. 
