flower-stalks, and ribs of the leaves, are alike cellular and covered with long prickles. Amid this expanse 

 of foliage rise the broad flowers, upwards of a foot across, and cither white, pink, or pui-ple ; always double, 

 and diffusing a delicious odour. The fruit, which succeeds these flowers, is spherical, and half the size, when ripe, 

 of the human head, full of roundish farinaceous seeds, which give to the plant the name of Water-jMaize (Mais del 

 Agua), for the Spaniards collect the seeds, roast and eat them. I was never weary of admiring tliis Colossus of 

 the Vegetable Kingdom, and reluctantly pursued my way the same evening to Corrientes, after collecting specimens 

 of the flowers, fruits, and seeds." 



Thus much for the earlier discoverers and first notices of this magnificent aquatic : we shall have occasion to 

 return to M. D'Orbigny j but in the naeanwhile it is only justice to mention in this place, that Sir Robert Schomburgk 

 detected the plant in British Guiana, when travelling on account of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 

 aided by Her Majesty's Government; his object being to examine the natural productions of that portion of the 

 British Dominions. The following account of this discovery was given in a letter addressed to the Geographical 

 Society.* 



ti 



difficulties 



forms, to stem our progress up the Ri\ cr Bcrbice (lat. 4° 30' N., long. 52° W.), that we arrived at a part where 

 the river expanded and formed a currentless basin. Some object on the southern extremity of this basin attracted 

 my attention, and I Avas unable to form an idea what it could be ; but, animating the crew to increase the rate 

 ■ of their paddling, we soon came opposite the object which had raised my curiosity, and, behold, a vegetable 

 Avonder ! All calamities were forgotten ; I was a botanist, and felt myself rewarded ! There were gigantic leaves, 

 five to six feet across, fiat, with a broad rim, lighter green above and vivid crimson below, floating upon the 

 water; while, in character with the wonderful foliage, I saw luxuriant flowers, each consisting of numerous petals, 

 passing, in alternate tints, from pure white to rose and pink. The smooth water was covered with the blossoms, 

 and as I rowed from one to the other, I always found something new to admire. The flower-stalk is an inch thick 

 near the calyx and studded with elastic prickles, about tlu-ee quarters of an inch long. Wlien expanded, the 

 four-leaved calyx measures a foot in diameter, but is concealed by the expansion of the hundred-petaled coroUa. 

 This beautiful flower, when it first unfolds, is white with a pink centre ; the colom- spreads as the bloom 

 increases in age ; and, at a day old, the whole is rose-coloured. As if to add to the charm of this noble Water-Lily, 

 it diffuses a sweet scent. As in the case of others in the same tribe, the petals and stamens pass gradually 

 into each other, and many petaloid leaves may be observed bcai-ing vestiges of an anther. The seeds are 

 numerous and imbedded in a spongy substance. 



"Ascending the river, we found this plant frequently, and the higher we advanced, the more gigantic did 

 the specimens become ; one leaf wc measured was six feet five inches in diameter, the rim five inches and a half high, 

 and the fiowers a foot and a quarter across. A beetle {Tric/iius sp. ?) infests the fiowcrs to their great injury, 

 often completely destroying the inner part of the disc ; we counted sometimes from twenty to thirty of these 

 insects in one flower." 



This highly interesting Narrative was made the groundwork of a more full history of the plant, accompanied 

 by a splendid figm-c, in a separate memoir of Atlas-folio size, by Dr. Lindley. Only twenty-five copies were 

 printed for private distribution, in 1837, and shortly after, this gentleman pubhshed the same account, with 

 important additions, in the Miscellaneous Notices of the ' Botanical Register ', whence copious extracts appeared 

 in numerous Papers and Journals. Nevertheless, that able botanist had to acknowledge, that the specimens in the 

 possession of the GcograpHcal Society, from which his generic and specific character (aided by Schomburgk's 

 colom-ed drawings) had been drawn up, were in a very decayed condition, owing to the manner in which tley 

 had been packed. They were, however, he says, botanically examinable; and such he has proved them to be by 

 the accuracy of his descriptive character, and by the correct result at which he arrived, viz., that the Ficforia 

 is truly and generically distinct from 3rr^ale, which in its simHar habit, inferior germen, and the prickly nature of 

 the foliage, petioles, peduncles, and ovaries, it so completely resembles, that, as has been previously observed, 

 both Poeppig and GuiUemIn unhesitatingly referred it to that genus. 



Stm it is obvious that, as far as the pubjic was concerned, with the exception of individuals versed in scientific 

 Botany, hardly any one could be gratified with the sight of a figure, and stHl fewer with that of a specimen of 



* Another, and simUar but more brief, account, contained in a letter addressed to us, was publislied, ^vitb further remarks, in the 'Annals 



of Natural History for 1838,' p. 65. 



B 2 



