281 



IIUTCHINSON'S POPULAR, BOTANY 



broad rim, light green above and vivid crimson below, floating upon the 

 water; while in character with the wonderful foliage I saw luxuriant 

 flowers, each consisting of numerous petals, passing in alternate tints 

 from pure white to rose and pink. The smooth water was covered with 

 the blossoms, and as I rowed from one to the other I always found some- 

 thing new to admire. . . . Ascending the river, we found this plant 

 frequently, and the higher we advanced the 

 more gigantic did the specimen become ; one 

 leaf we measured was 6ft. 5 in. in diameter, 

 the rim five and a half inches high, and the 

 flowers a foot and a quarter across." 



The under surfaces of these leaves as, 

 indeed, of nearly all floating leaves afford 

 resting-places for numberless aquatic insects 

 and snails ; while certain birds which prey 

 on fish use the leaves as rafts. The French 

 traveller Marcoy, who saw large numbers of 

 the Victoria Lilies on the Nufia Lake, Peru, 

 likens the collective effect of the leaves to a 

 splendid carpet, on which, to quote his own ex- 

 pression, " quite a multitude of stilt-plovers, 

 ibises, jacanas, anhunas, savacas, Brazilian 

 ostriches, and spoonbills disported themselves." 

 The jacanas mentioned by Marcoy are the 

 Parrce of naturalists wading birds, somewhat 

 analogous both in structure and habits to 

 the European water-hen, and their light bodies 

 and long toes enable them to walk on the float- 

 ing leaves with as much facility as if they 

 were on land. 



Large as are the leaves of the Victoria Lily, 

 they are by no means the largest known. The 

 Gochuinia (or Dracontium) gigas (fig. 345), a 

 species of Arum discovered in Central America 

 by Dr. Seeman so recently as 1869, produces 

 a leaf no less than fourteen feet long. Its stalk, 

 which is beautifully mottled with purple and 

 yellow, has been compared to a huge snake 



standing erect at the bidding of an Eastern charmer. But there are greater 

 leaves even than this. At Kew, not long since, one of the Sago Palms bore 

 fronds * which were upwards of forty feet in length ; and we believe that 



* In speaking of Palm-leaves as "fronds," we uss popular language. In botanical 

 terminology a frond is the leaf of a Fern or other Cryptogam, though in recent years 

 the tendency has been to spsak of fern-leaves, not fronds. 



FIG. 347. LATTICE-LEAF. 



In this Madagascar plant the perforations 

 of the leaf are so numerous that it re- 

 sembles a skeleton leaf. 



