180 



PAXTON'S -FLOWER GARDENS 



limb four or four and a half inches long. Filaments decimate, about as long as the perianth-segments; anthers 

 linear-oblong, under half an inch long. Style very slender, decimate, bright red towards the tip, as long as the 

 perianth ; stigma capitate. — Botanical Magazine, 8545. 



Victoria Regia. 



For many years this plant has been allowed to bear the name which was first given to it by an authority which we 

 at least shall not presume to question. But some attempts have been lately made at effecting an alteration, which he, to 

 whom the high honour was assigned of rendering the plant known under the name of Victoria regia, is bound to resist. 



Sir William Hooker, in announcing his intention of publishing certain plates by Mr. Fitch, in illustration of the 

 plant, speaks of it under the name of Victoria Regina. We presume he has been led to do so by trusting to the 

 accuracy of a statement made in The Annals of Natural History for August 1850, p. 146 ; to which statement attention 

 is now requested. The author, Mr. John Edward Gray, a zoological officer in the British Museum, writes thus : — 



" This plant has three names very nearly alike, and two of them appear to have originated from errors of the press. 



« Mr. Schomburgk, on the 11th of May, 1827, sent, through the Geographical Society, a letter to the Botanical 

 Society of London, containing the description of this beautiful Water Lily, accompanied by two drawings and a leaf of 

 the plant. He proposed to call it NymphasaVictoria, but before the paper was read it was observed that the plant appeared 

 to form a genus intermediate between Nymphma and Euryale. The paper was slightly altered to make this change, and in 

 a Report of the Proceedings of the Botanical Society, which appeared in the Athenteum Journal of the 9th of September, 

 1837 (p. 661), Mi\ Schomburgk's description is printed entire, as that of a 'new genus of Water Lily named Victoria 

 Regina, by permission of Her Majesty.' Mr. Schomburgk's paper was again read, and his drawings exhibited at the 

 Meeting of the British Association on the 11th of September, 1837, by me, and I am reported to have 'remarked, that 

 this splendid plant would form a new genus with characters intermediate between Nymphma and Euryale, and proposed 

 to name it Victoria Regina:' see Report in Mag. Zool. and Bot. for October 1837, vol. ii. p. 373. Schomburgk's 

 description, and an engraving of the plant, copied from his drawing, appeared in the next number of that Journal, which 

 came out on the 1st of November, 1837 (vol. ii. p. 441, tab. 12). The description was reprinted again, with copies of 

 Mi-. Schomburgk's drawing of the plant and his details of the flower, in the Proceedings of the Botanical Society, p. 44. 

 t. 1 & 2. So much for the name Victoria Regina, Schomburgk. 



" In the Magazine of Zoology and Botany, by a mistake of the engraver, the plate is lettered ' Victoria Regalis Schom- 

 burgh," though the proper name is used in the text. This second name has not been anywhere adopted. In the Index 

 to the Athenaeum Journal for 1837, p. vii., under the head of Botanical Society, occurs, 'Schomburgk on the Victoria 

 regia, p. 661,' which is evidently an error of the press, as the name in the page referred to is V. Regina. 



" Shortly after the appearance of the description and figure in the Annals of Zoology and Botany, and after Sir William 

 Jardine had returned them, Captain Washington, R.N., then Secretary of the Geographical Society, borrowed from the 

 Botanical Society the original description and drawing of the plant made by Mr. Schomburgk, with the intention of their 

 appearing in the Journal of the Geographical Society with Mr. Schomburgk's Journal of his Travels. Instead of this being 

 done, the papers found their way into the hands of Dr. Lindley, who printed, for private distribution, twenty-five copies of 

 an essay on this plant, entirely derived from Mr. Schomburgk's paper, and illustrated with highly embellished copies of 

 Schomburgk's drawing. In the essay he adopted the view which had been stated before the Botanical Society and British 

 Association, that it formed a genus intermediate between Euryale and Nymphcea (see Bot. Reg. 1838, p. 11), but he called 

 the plant Victoria regia, thus continuing the error of the printer of the Athenaeum. 



" In Miscellaneous Notices attached to the Botanical Register for 1838, p. 9 — 18, Dr. Lindley having been enabled 

 to examine a specimen of the flower in a bad state, which Mr. Schomburgk had sent home in salt, gave some further 

 details, and for the first time published an account of the plant under the above name, and this name has been adopted by 

 several succeeding botanists, who have quoted it as V. regia of Lindley. I think, however, that this account proves that 

 the name of Victoria Regina, ivhich received the sanction of Her Majesty, Avas the one first used and published, and has the 

 undoubted right of priority." 



The italics are our own ; and we beg the reader's particular attention to them while comparing with Mr. Gray's 

 statement the following precis of the letters, &c, relative to this transaction, as they appear in the records of the 

 Letter-book of the Geographical Society : 



1837, July 18. — Letter received from Mr. Schomburgk, dated Berbice, 11th May, 1837, announcing the discovery of 

 a Water Lily on that river, on the 1st of January, 1837, stating that he has sent two sets of drawings 

 home, with a request that, if a new genus, he might be permitted to append to it the name of Victoria. 

 July. — Three days later, a packet, containing two sets of drawings and descriptions, arrives. 



The President of the Royal Geographical Society communicates on the subject with Sir Henry Wheatley. 

 July 26. — Sir H. Wheatley signifies the Queen's commands that the drawings be sent to the palace for inspection. 

 July 27. — The President, Sir H. Wheatley, sending drawings, and adding request that the flower may bear 

 the name Victoria. 



July 29. — Sir H. Wheatley to the President, signifying Her Majesty's pleasure, that the name of Victoria Regia 

 should be affixed to the flower. Drawing returned for the purpose of enabling this to be done. 



