10 VICTORIA REGIA; 
very imperfect anthers. The circle or crown first alluded to, surrounds these, and is quite petaloid, white, (soon stained with yellow,) streaked and spotted 
with rose color. The filaments of the stamens have air-cells as well as the petals. The pollen grains consist of three or four cohering cells, very pellucid, 
pale yellow, showing a limbus.” 
PISTIL. 
“Ovary, including the tube of the calyx, hemispherical, many-celled, with a very considerable depression at the top, formed by the sessile, concave, or 
deeply cup-shaped stigma, which has a conical, fleshy column in the centre, as in Nymphwa, and the surface is granulated, and furrowed by a great number 
of lines, (as many as there are cells to the ovary,) radiating from the centre to the cireumference, crenated or toothed at the margin, constituting the 
stigmatic surface. Immediately at the edge or margin of this stigma is a closcly-packed series of remarkable bodies. They seem at first sight to be a 
continuation of the rays of the stigma, consequently exactly equalling them in number, applied in part to the inner face of the annular torus, to which they 
slightly cohere, and in part to the inner base of the innermost sterile row of stamens which lie over them; they are closely packed laterally, compressed, 
curved or bent at an angle, broad below, tapering to a point above, but it is at the base that they are more firmly attached and less easily separated. 
Externally they have a thin, membranous integument, quite different from the firm texture of the stigmatic surface adjacent; the back is purplish brown, 
the sides pale. Internally they are yellowish, laxly cellular, spongy ; in age, they appear filled with a loose mass of irregularly formed cells or granules, 
mixed with stellated filaments or spicule. A careful inspection of a section made vertically through these bodies and the torus and calyx-tube and germen 
will show, between the stigma and the calyx-tube, that a mass of the same spongy-like cellular matter is continued to the substance of the ovary, (surround- 
ing the cells,) which is also of the same texture, but less colored. When the flower is past its best, these bodies may easily be separated from the torus, 
leaving, however, a distinct scar, also visible in the state of the fruit, and covered with the loose, pulpy, granular substance of the interior. In my early 
description of the Victoria Regia in the Botanical Magazine, I was erroneously led (on an examination of dead specimens) to suppose that these bodies 
were the stigmas. And more than one eminent botanist have considered Nymphia as affording something analogous in the incurved points of its stigmas; 
but these are in reality a prolongation of the stigmatic rays; here, the texture is of a wholly different nature from that of the stigma. The very concave 
centre of the stigma is occupied by a pyramidical or conoid fleshy column, analogous to what is seen, though on a smaller scale, in the centre of the stigma 
of Nymphwa alba; a vertical section of this and of the adjacent base of the stigma, when viewed under the microscope, exhibits only very compact cellular 
structure, the latter having in addition several minute, brown, opaque bodies remote from the surface.” 
SEED OR FRUIT. 
“The fertilized ovary parts with its floral coverings, which decay, except the adherent calyx, and sinks under water to perfect its fruit and ripen its 
seeds; and again rising to the surface before the seeds are dispersed. The fruit is a very large berry, nearly globose, or rather urceolate-globose, for there 
is a constriction below the thickened margin, horrid with the copious persistent prickles, of an olive brown color. 
“The thickened corrugated rim ig nothing more than the shrivelled, persistent, annular torus, at the back of which may be observed the scars of the 
fallen or decayed sepals and petals, on the top those of the deciduous stamens; and in the inside of the rim we clearly discern the impressions left by the 
bodies which we described as crowning the margin of the stigma. The annular torus is incorporated with the whole of the cup-shaped stigma, and the two 
together form a large and curious operculum, which eventually separates from the fruit. Its shape is like that of a wash hand basin ; it is coriaceous and 
leathery, beautifully fluted and ribbed within and without; it bears, on the lower edge of the rim, a portion of the adherent calyx, with a circle of spreading 
prickles. Although the falling away of the great operculum might lead to the idea that such was the mode of dehiscence of the fruit, yet that is not the 
case, for the pericarp bursts irregularly, soon decays, and the seeds are found scattered among the pulp. The seeds are greenish black, about the size of a 
pea, oval, with a slight projection at the upper end. The testa is hard, even on the surface; albumen copious, farinaceous, milky, and cellular when young; 
the embryo small, white, enclosed in a membranous sack, is lodged at the upper end of the albumen ; the cotyledons are hemispherical, thick and fleshy ; 
radicle short and superior.” 
A representation of the first growth of the seed is given, the testa still remaining visible on the surface of the soil under the water, with the first shoots 
and earliest leaves, of the natural size, as they appeared on the plant at Salem. 
CULTIVATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 
The first flowering of this lily in the United States took place at Springbrook, near Philadelphia, the seat of Cares Corr, Esq., 21st August, 1851. 
In a letter to Mr. A. J. Downing, Mr. Cope says: “I am sorry you were not here to witness the excitement which prevailed when the Victoria bloomed for 
the first time in this country, and when my grounds seemed to be in complete possession of the public. Since that event we have had a weekly contribution 
of a flower, the fourth one maturing last evening. I send you a report from my gardener, which will be interesting to those who wish to look into the detail 
of the culture and treatment of the plant. The committee on plants and flowers of the Horticultural Society were present on the second flower blooming. 
They measured the petals, which they found seven inches in length, and the crown or disk of the flower, three inches; thus making the diameter of the 
whole, seventeen inches. This is three inches larger than any flower produced in England. he leaves are also six inches larger than any grown there. The 
natural conditions of the plant in our country are, undoubtedly, more favorable than they can possibly be in England. There the water is at 85° generally, 
and the atmosphere at 75°; here it is just the reverse, which is, without doubt, more like its native country. I am satisfied that we have hit upon the right 
method of cultivating the plant, and that both flowers and leaves are equal to any found, either in a native or foreign state, in any part of the world. We 
have had no fire since the 21st of June. The flower, last evening, was more gorgeous than any of its predecessors. As its conversion was going on, in its 
