418 GARDEN PLANTS. PART IT. 



vessels sunk to the rim in the earth, and kept filled with water. 

 These when properly attended to have a very pleasing and 

 refreshing appearance, especially if in some situation near the 

 entrance to the house, surrounded by potted plants of different 

 kinds. 



Euryale. 



Eu. ferox. A small plant ; native of India ; remarkable 

 principally for its curious bristling foliage ; flowers small, blue, 

 and of no interest whatever ; well adapted for growing in an 

 earthen vessel, as above described. 



Victoria. 



V. regia. This noble aquatic, native of South America, thrives 

 well in the tanks about Calcutta, and produces its magnificent 

 blossoms principally in the Cold season. The flower is of 

 immense size, as much sometimes as a foot in diameter, white 

 tinted with rose-colour, and passes through three distinct stages 

 in the process of expanding, with the interval of a day between 

 each stage, and is almost equally beautiful during each of these 

 stages. When perfectly expanded it almost immediately dies 

 off. By some the leaf will be considered an object of even as 

 much interest as the flower. In its upper surface it resembles a 

 large round tea-tray, three or four feet in diameter, laid upon 

 the water ; and in its lower surface it presents a most curious 

 and complicated network of fibres, from which project a very 

 formidable array of thorns. The plant is found not to exist 

 more than two years, when its place must be supplied by a fresh 

 one raised from seed, which in the- vicinity of Calcutta it bears 

 abundantly. If the seeds have to be conveyed to a long distance, 

 it has been found that they will only retain their vitality by 

 being kept in phials of pure water. All attempts at introducing 

 the plants into this country failed till Dr. Wallich resorted to 

 this plan. The seeds are sometimes very long in germinating. 

 Mr. M'Murray states : 



** Two of the Victoria regia seed, presented to the Society by the 

 late Dr. Wallich on the 8th November, 1851, have germinated 

 during this month, after lying in the gumlah of mud and water 

 for two years and nine months."* 



* 'Journal of the Agri-Horticultural Society,' vol. ix. p. 49. 



