THE AQUARIUM, JULY, 1894. 



119 



The perfume of the Victoria is not 

 continuous, but is given off in puffs ; 

 one moment the flower is scentless, but 

 soon comes a puff of fragrance which, 

 if one is too near, is almost suffocating, 

 for it is very powerful and fully inhaled 



The Water Hyacinth— (Eichoruia speciosa.) 



makes one's head spin round merrily. 

 The seeds of the Victoria are ground, 

 or rather pounded, into a fine flour by 

 the Indians and makes not unpalatable 

 bread. 



One would suppose that the Amazon 

 would furnish many species of Nym- 

 phajas or Water Lilies, but such is not 

 the case. There is one, KympJuea 

 ampla, which is very common ; there 

 are acres upon acres in the flats ; it is 

 a coarse grower with large, dark, red- 

 dish green leaves, and flowers of me- 

 dium size, varying in color from white 

 to yellowish. It is a most disappoint- 

 ing species, for, though the flowers are 

 handsome and have a rich Pineapple 

 fragrance, one must sit up all night 

 with them to smell it, or see the Lilies 

 in perfection, for the flowers do not ex- 

 pand until very late and close in the 

 very early morning, long before day- 

 light. We had seen thousands of buds 

 before ever we saw an expanded flower. 



The flowers stand out of the water like 

 the other tropical species. It is so large 

 a grower that the plant would soon 

 fill any pond, to the exclusion of every 

 thing else. It is plentiful around Para, 

 being often seen in the roadside ditches. 

 In Curtis' Botanical Magazine a 

 beautiful little yellow Nymph;i?a is 

 figured under the name of Xi/))ip7uea 

 Amnzonica, but we have never been able 

 to see or hear of such a plant and doubt 

 its existence. Possibly it may be the 

 Mexican species, or even that of Flor- 

 ida, with a misnomer. There is, how- 

 ever, we believe, on the far river Purus, 

 an immense Nymphaea with golden 

 yellow flowers, for so many have told 

 us of it, that we cannot doubt the fact. 

 Once a steamer captain brought it for 

 us. Arriving late at night, he put the 

 plants in a tub of water in his yard to 

 be sent to us in the morning. L^nfor- 

 tunately his wife kept ducks and when, 

 on receiving his message to come for the 

 plant, we arrived at his house we found 

 that the ducks, wlio are very early 



Pontf:deria ('(ikdata—( Native of North America.) 



risers, had destroyed every vestige of 

 our Lily. In time we shall again re- 

 ceive it, but nothing in Brazil is ever 

 hurried and the first lesson one has to 

 learn is ^' patiencia." 



Eichornia speciosa, the old Pontederia 

 crassipes, which is now much cultivated 



