70 ROYAL WATER-LILY. 



to the health and vigour which it is desirable the 

 plant should sustain. It is stated to have seven 

 fresh leaves, and to have produced fine plump seeds, 

 from which a large number of strong and healthy 

 seedlings have been raised. These facts concerning 

 the original plant the one which first produced 

 blossoms in Europe are of interest, and worthy of 

 record in connection with the Lily's history. It is 

 gratifying to see that this individual plant is still 

 sustaining a condition of health and vigour, for an 

 interest is attached to it such as none of the other 

 numerous plants of the 'Victoria can possess. 



Mr Paxton has, more than any other horticultu- 

 rist, shown himself a zealous cultivator of the Vic- 

 toria, and has erected a splendid new structure, spe- 

 cially for its accommodation, measuring sixty-one 

 and a half feet in length, and forty-six feet nine inches 

 wide, over the walls; the tank is circular, and mea- 

 sures thirty-three feet in diameter, while the centre 

 part, containing the soil for the plant, is sixteen 

 feet in diameter. This elegant structure is figured, 

 and its mode of construction fully detailed, in the 

 " Gardeners' Chronicle" (1850 p. 549), and intend- 

 ing cultivators of the Lily will do well to consult the 

 details therein given. Mr Paxton's Victoria-house, 

 planned by himself, afforded him the type of that 

 enormous structure now building for the Great Ex- 

 hibition of 1851, of the design for which he has the 

 entire honour. In his account of the new Victoria- 



