By the Hon. and Rev. William Herbert. 193 



nut to that of a very small pea, but some even of the smallest 

 have already vegetated. 



Immediately after the flowers of the hybrid Crinum had 

 faded, I placed the pot in the pond, about two inches under 

 the surface of the water. After it had stood there about a 

 fortnight, a second flower-stem made its appearance, stronger 

 and more highly coloured than that which had been pro- 

 duced in the stove. It bore twelve flower-buds, the first of 

 which expanded on the 27th of July, and the whole inflo- 

 rescence was sent a few days after, by your desire, to the 

 Horticultural Society. I have also kept in the pond, for two 

 months, advantageously, the Asiatic Crinum longifolium, of 

 Dr. Roxburg, the leaves of which blister and burst in the 

 stove, with a discharge of thick juice, whenever the sun is 

 very powerful. It is a solitary bulb, rarely, if ever, producing 

 an offset, and flowers with a reclining scape in the meadows 

 of Bengal at the time of their inundation. 



I keep the Crinum Asiaticum of Dr. Roxburg, which is 

 Mr. Ker's Crinum defixum, plunged in water, or with a pan 

 under it, in the stove, where it flowered strong in July. 

 It is a native of the ditches that communicate with the water 

 of the rivers in Bengal, where it roots deeply in the mud, 

 on which account (as the name Asiaticum, which it bears at 

 Calcutta, had been given in Europe to a very different 

 plant) it is called by Mr. Ker, defixum ; but the idea of 

 its having a tap root, originating from a drawing by Dr. 

 Roxburg, which I have not seen, is quite erroneous. It 

 increases like Pancratium rotatum, by stolones, that descend 

 into the mud, and if there be a strong fibre in his drawing 

 that has been mistaken for a tap root, it must be either one 



