THE FLOWER. 121 
neatly the whole vegetable production of the country, and is 
nearly nine feet in circumference. This is the Rafflesia Arnoldi 
(Fig. 188). The calyx of some of the Aristolochia on the banks of 
the Rio Magdalena, is so voluminous, that the inhabitants use it 
for acap. The flower of Victoria regia, represented in Plate VI., 
is about forty inches in circumference. The effect produced upon 
Sir Robert Schomberg, when he first saw this magnificent flower on 
the River Berbice, is thus described :— 
“Tt was on the Ist of January, while contending with the diffi- 
culties nature opposed in different forms to our progress up the 
River Berbice, that we arrived at a point where the river expanded, 
and formed a currentless basin. Some object on the southern 
extremity of this basin attracted my attention; it was impossible 
to form any idea what it could be; and, animating the crew to 
increase the rate of their paddling, we were shortly afterwards 
opposite the object that had raised my curiosity—a vegetable 
wonder. All calamities were forgotten ; I felt as a botanist, and 
felt myself rewarded: a gigantia leaf, from five to six feet in 
diameter, salver-shaped, with a broad rim, of a light green above 
and a vivid crimson below, rested on the water. Quite in cha- 
racter with the wonderful leaf was the luxuriant flower, consisting 
of many hundred 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 observed something 
new to admire.” The leaves are of an orbicular form, the upper 
surface is bright green, and they are furnished with a rim round 
the margin from three to five inches in height; on the inside the 
rim has a green colour, and on the outside, like the under surface 
of the leaf, it is of a bright crimson; they have prominent ribs, 
which project an inch high, radiating from a common centre; 
these are crossed by a membrane, giving the whole the appearance 
of a spider’s web; the whole leaf is beset with prickles, and, when 
young, is convolvulate. The stock of the flower is an inch thick, 
and studded with prickles; the calyx is four-leaved, each sepal is 
Seven inches in length and four inches broad; the corolla covers 
the calyx with hundreds of petals; when first opened it is of a 
white colour, but subsequently changes to pink ; it is very fragrant. 
Like all other water-lilies, its petals and stamens pass into each 
: 
