L6 



' fair science' must sympathise in the pleasure with which I regarded 

 this beautiful plant. How much more delightful would be the surprise 

 to encounter it in its native solitudes, where the hand of Nature has 

 planted and reared it, amid the mangroves and the tall reeds, oversha- 

 dowing with its magnificent leaves and flowers the still waters of the la- 

 goon, recalling the description of Una in the Fairy Queen. 



' Her angel face 

 As the great eye of heaven shined bright 

 And made a sunshine in the shady place.' " 



The present Director having seen it growing in all its beauty on an 

 island in the Mississippi in a wide stretch, 100 yards long by 50 broad, 

 made attempts but without success to trace it again 8 or 9 years ago in 

 the neighbourhood of Caymanas estate, the only spot from which it 

 had been recorded. It was therefore with great pleasure that a seed- 

 vessel was received in 1890 from Mr. R. K. Tomlinson, who had found 

 it in swamps in St. Elizabeth. 



It is only lately that it has been possible to provide a place for it at 

 Hope Gardens; where it is now flowering. Mr. Jenman, Superinten- 

 dent of the Botanic Gardens in British Guiana, writes as follows : — 



" Of the Nelumbium luteum seed you sent me in Jul} r , 1895, one plant 

 survived. After three or four months' growth in a pot, in a tub of 

 water, it was planted out in a bay of one of the lakes. It now covers 

 from three to four hundred square yards surface, and is flowering as 

 freely as N. speciosum, whose stems form dense thickets in the trenches 

 and lakes here. I think I told you before that I have had the Florida 

 plant here for the past ten or eleven years, and though it has covered 

 a great area, it is not at all rampant as the Jamaica one has proved it- 

 self, and has never flowered. The only explanation is that the latter 

 is adapted to the climate here and the other is not." 



Mr. Jenman's statement is remarkable, and it is is interesting 

 to compare with it the first record of its flowering in England, 

 given in the "Botanical Magazine" by Mr. Sylvester: — Its flow- 

 ering, I believe, to have been the consequence of an accidental circum- 

 stance, which I shall mention. I had hitherto treated it like the Red 

 or eastern species, from an impression that it was confined to the most 

 southern and warmest portion of North America ; the pots of both 

 being plunged in a cistern of water, kept at a heat of about 86 degrees 

 and as the plants grew very vigorously and appeared to be in health, I 

 did not try any other situation. They had never shown any disposi- 

 tion to bloom until the present season, when in consequence of the gar- 

 dener having left a smaller opeuing than usual in the flue that passes 

 under the cistern, and which is entirely closed in the winter, the water 

 remained at about 70 or 75 degrees, and the house was altogether 

 cooler than in previous summers. Under these circumstances, while 

 the Red species threw up a number of flower buds, none of w T hich oame 

 to maturity, two out of the three plants of the yellow-blossomed sort 

 flowered and are ripening seed's. The house and the water have since 

 been warmer, and N. speciosum is now, though later in the season, coming 

 into bloom. 



