XII. 
SHORTER MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.* 
I. REMARKS ON NELUMBIUM LUTEUM. 
FroM THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE St. Louis ACADEMY OF ScrENCE (ProceeprNes), Vou. II. 1860. 
THE Nelumbium, common in our stagnant waters, is not only one of our most pret [136] 
plants, with the largest leaves and the largest flowers, with edible nuts and large edible tubers 
but it is also one of the most curiously constructed plants, following with astonishing regularity its 
peculiar but very simple laws. Its morphology has attracted the attention of botanists before this, 
and Mr. A. Trécul has done much to develop its peculiarities ; Prof. Caspary has studied the plant 
very intelligently, without, however, publishing as yet anything about it. The ample material at my 
disposal has, I believe, permitted me to add observations which may have been beyond the reach of 
my predecessors. 
The structure of the embryo is sufficiently well known. The lower leaf (always on the side of 
the rhaphe and the periphery of the torus) of the large green plumule shows at the base of its petiole 
a rim, extending around the stemlet, indicative of the stipule which characterizes all the succeeding 
leaves. The stipule of the second much smaller leaf includes the third, and the stipule of this a 
fourth leaf, all of them preformed in the seed. After these distichously arranged leaves have been 
developed, the young stem reclines in the mud, and henceforth begins the new mode of vegetation 
which ever afterwards characterizes this plant. The stem, growing now horizontally in the mire at 
the bottom of the pond or lake, has an upper, or dorsal, and a lower, or ventral side; it (as well as 
the organs produced from it in a vertical direction) has an anterior and a posterior side in regard 
to the direction of its growth. This stem is terminated by a bud, which consists of two bud-scales 
(Niederblaetter), a and b, in opposite directions, with very short, confluent nodes, and one large leaf, 
C, with the stipule, s,in the direction of the second scale, succeeded by an elongated internode, 7, 
which at its end bears a similar bud. The roots consist of numerous fleshy fibres, beset with simple 
fibrille, and originating from the node just behind the lowest scale. 
Now, the plant prepares for propagation also in the simplest and most constant manner : 
one flower is produced from the axil of the second scale and one branch from that of the leaf; [137] 
these parts are always preformed and distinctly visible even when not developed. The long 
and stout flower-stalk, P, without any foliaceous organs at its base, bears on its top the flower F, 
and just under it two opposite bracts, d and e,—the lower one, d, having a direction opposite to the 
supporting scale, b. The branch, 7, has at the base of the long internode and opposite to the sup- 
_porting leaf two bud-scales, f and g, one above the other; the internode is terminated by a bud 
* Arranged systematically. 
