TEE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 237 



They resemble magnolias, emit an odor of aniseseed 

 and grow upon long foot-stalks that raise them to the 

 surface of the water. They are found principally in 

 India and China, and are partly cultivated on account 

 of the veneration in which they are held by the in- 

 habitants of those countries. For the nelumbium is 

 looked upon as a sacred plant the symbol of fertility 

 and their divinities are represented as seated on its 

 leaves. A species of the yellow nelumbio, grows in 

 this country in South Carolina and Florida, but its 

 flowers are smaller and always of a pale yellow. 



THE NEPENTHES. 



What Homer calls the Nepenthe has been inter- 

 preted as an allegory by Plutarch and some of the an- 

 cient writers already, because the flower now known 

 by that name appears not to have been familiar to 

 the ancients. The poet is believed to have described, 

 under the form of a glorious flower, the charming 

 Queen of Sparta, who made her guests forget how time 

 passed, by her wondrous tale of love and adventure. 

 It is certain that neither Lamark nor Brongni, nor 

 Jussieu, have been able to class this plant among those 

 now known. One believed it might belong to the 

 orchids ; another compared it to the rafflesias ; a third 

 calls it a " plant of uncertain character ; " while still 

 others make of it, in despair, a special family, that of 

 the Nepenthees, represented in India by the Nepen- 

 thes distillatoria in Madagascar by a special genus, 

 characterized by the leafy tufts of its cups ; in Cochin 

 China, by the Nepenthes phyllamphora ; and in 



