256 VILLARSIA. [class v. order i. 



the throat, five glands altcnuiting with the stamens. Stigma five- 

 cleft. Capsule two valvcd. Seeds numerous. Leaves simple. — 

 Named in compliment to M, de Villars, author of Flora des 

 Dauphine. 



1. V. nymfhm'oides, Vent. (Fig. 337.) Nymphcca-like ViUarsia. 

 Leaves floating, orbicular, cordate; flowers in axillary sessile umbels; 

 corolla ciliated. 



Hooker, British Flora, vol. 5. p. 109. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 180. — 

 Menyanthes nymplmoides, Linn.— E. Botany, t. 217. — English Flora, 

 vol. i. p. 276, 



Roots long, round, cord-like. Stems long, round, smooth, succulent, 

 much branched, and spreading. Leaves floating on the surface of the 

 water, roundish, heart-shaped at the base, the margins more or less 

 waved or toothed, smooth, shining, pale variegated green above, a darkish 

 purple beneath, and thickly scattered over with small elevated spots. 

 Footstalks long, round, dilated and membranous at the base, and from 

 their axis arise the flowers, in a sessile umbellate manner. The 

 pedicles round, smooth, erect when in flower. Calyx in five lanceolate 

 obtuse segments, about half the length of the corolla, smooth. Corolla 

 large, yellow, rotate, in five spreading segments, the margins curiously 

 inflexed in aestivation, and more or less fringed, with a smooth darker 

 radiating disk ; the orifice of the short tube fringed with simple hairs, 

 around which also are placed the sta)iiens on short filaments, alternat- 

 ing with five oblong// /a ?u7a'. Pistil about half as long as the corolla. 

 Stigma five-cleft. Capsule ovate, of one cell, two valves, nutny seeded. 



Habitat. — R.ivers and still v,;.';)'; rare. In the 'i'hames ; abundant 

 in the Canal, near Downham Market, and Wisbeach ; and several 

 places in Yorkshire. 



Perennial ; flowering in July and August. 



This rare but beautiful plant is readily cultivated in ponds or streams 

 of water; and when it has once established itself, it is afterwards dillicult 

 of extirpation. It is highly ornamental in the drains and rivers of 

 Holland, and many other parts of (he continent, entirely covering the 

 surface of the water with its beautiful floating leaves and stems, and its 

 rather large elegant flowers successively rising and expanding their 

 curious structured corollas, making gay the abode of the croaking frog, 

 ( Rana tnnporaria), and undulating leech, (Ilirttdo mcdicinnlis) 

 two sleek animals, known to most persons, but favourites with 

 few. Wc once in one of our botanical perambulations, in search of 

 aquatic plants, had our attention attracted by them. 'I'he frog, evi- 

 dently in a state of perturbation, was endeavouring to escape with all the 

 exertion that it could make IVom an attack of the wily leech ; but v\ith 

 all its leaping, swimming, and croaking, it could not shake off its close 

 companion, who had attached ilseif fiimly upon its leg: and to jud^je 



