Historical. 23 



lily as N alba simply. In many points the description is only a repetition 

 of earlier writers ; the flowers are said to be odorless, with the outer 

 leaves greenish as in Ornithogalum (ut Ornithogali). A " Nymphaea 

 Brasiliensis," known to the natives as Aguape, and described in nearly 

 the same words as used by Piso, is given here, on the authority of 

 Marggrav's observations, and classed as belonging to N alba. A fifth 

 species is added, N alba major Aegyptiaca. The specific description 

 of this refers to the " crenate leaves " which identify it with N lotus L., 

 and the statement is added, " flores . . . semper supra superficiem aquae." 

 The object of this addition comes out when in the succeeding paragraph 

 the stories of Theophrastus, Pliny, and Alpinus are given regarding the 

 retirement of the flower far under water at night, and the writer boldly 

 concludes, " Nobis certe incredibilia videntur." 



Jacobus Breynius (1680) is one of the few among the early botanists 

 who considered new and foreign plants. His second Prodromus gives 

 "Nymphaea flore coeruleo odoratissimo, Cap. bonae spei ; nobis," and 

 " Nymphaea flore suave purpurascente Japonica ; nobis." The former 

 is doubtless N. capensis Thunb., the latter Nelumbo. 



The magnificent "Flora Malabarica" of Van Rheede (1692) contains 

 figures of a number of water plants. In vol. 11, plates 26, 27, 28 and 29 

 represent plants with floating leaves, all under the general Malabar name 

 of Ambel. The first, called simply Ambel, is Nymphaea pnibescens; the sec- 

 ond, Cit-Ambel is the source of Willdenow's Nymphaea stellata, a blue- 

 flowered waterlily. The other two, Nedel-Ambel and Tsjeroa-Ambel are 

 Limnanthemums. All are quite fairly recognizable from the engravings, 

 at least as to their generic position. It is interesting to note that the 

 natives of the Malabar coast classed Nymphaea and Limnanthemum 

 under the same type or genus, just as did their European contempor- 

 aries. The text accompanying the plates refers chiefly to the medicinal 

 properties of the plants. 



In 1696 Commelin published Latin names and synonymy for the 

 species illustrated by Van Rheede. To Ambel he gave the title " Nym- 

 phaea indica, flore candido, folio in ambitu serrato," although he regarded it 

 as identical with the Egyptian white lotus according to Parkinson, Alpinus, 

 and Vesling. Cit-Ambel was dubbed "Nymphaea malabarica minor, folio 

 serrato" and was a new species to European botany. 



Perhaps the most magnificent and exhaustive botanical work of the 

 pre-Linnaean period is the " Phytographia " of Plukenet (1691-96), with 

 its exquisite engravings and its several companion volumes of text. We 



