24 The Waterulies. 



cannot tell exactly what this writer understood by the term Nymphaea ; 

 for of the four varieties figured in the Phytographia, one appears to be 

 Trientalis, another is plainly Marsilia, a third is Nelumbo, and the fourth 

 Limnanthemum. The genus is still more comprehensive in the " Amal- 

 theum " (1705), including in addition to those above mentioned our Nym- 

 phaea alba and N lotus as well as Nuphar, Hydrocharis, Podophyllum, and 

 some others whose brief descriptions are unrecognizable. Several of 

 these had been much more scientifically disposed of by earlier authors 

 with whose writings Plukenet was fully conversant. In the " Mantissa " 

 ( 1 700) Brasenia and Pistia are added as species of Nymphaea, additions 

 which one can easily understand. Nymphaea capensis is also given under 

 the name and on the authority of Breynius as quoted above, but it is 

 confused with Nelumbo. Finally an American terrestrial plant classed by 

 previous writers as a Brassica, is here classed as a species of Nymphaea. 

 The white Nymphaea or Laze-Laze of Flacourt is referred by Plukenet in 

 the "Amaltheum" to his "Nymphaea Indiae" (Nelumbo). Plukenet 

 brings in no new information for our subject. 



In 1 707 Sloane described a white flowered Nymphaea with the edges 

 of the leaves "deeply cut," from the "Fresh River" in Jamaica; he says 

 its leaves agree with the description of the white lotus of India, and hence 

 he speaks of it as " N Indira flore candido folio in ambitu serraio" of 

 Commelin. The identity must have been mistaken, since none of the 

 Old World species are native in the new. Caspary has rightly identified 

 this with N ampla DC. In discussing the names, Sloan suggests that 

 the Indian and Egyptian white lotus seem to him to differ very little ; 

 English botanists now rank them as one species. He also states, quoting 

 authority, that his Jamaica waterlily was carried to the Indies by way of 

 merchandise. Perhaps this is an attempt to explain its supposed identity 

 with the Egyptian plant. 



By all odds the best pre-Linnaean classification of plants, as is well 

 known, was that of Tournefort (1700). The waterlilies are placed in his 

 Sixth Class, " herbs and suffruticose plants with rosaceous flowers." 

 Nymphaea is the last (eleventh) genus in the fourth section of this class, 

 while Nelumbo is separated from it as the first genus in section five. In 

 this respect Tournefort came nearer our present ideas than Linnaeus, who 

 made Nelumbo a species of Nymphaea. The genus Nymphaea is defined 

 in the " Institutiones " as having a circle of many petals, and a pistil rising 

 from the midst which forms a globose or conical multilocular fruit filled 

 with many oblong seeds. The floral leaves and the fruit are putrescent, and 



