NAT. ORDER. 
IVi/mphiacecB. 
NELUMBIUM SPECIOSUM. CHINESE WATEE LILY. 
Class PoLYANDRiA. Order Polygynia. 
Gen. Char. Calyx, four, five, and six leaved, larg-e and colored. 
Corolla, numerous petals, pften fifteen. Stamens, often seventy. 
Pistillum, ovate. 
Spe. Char. Style, none. Stigma, orbiculate, flat, peltate, sessile, 
rag-ged, crenate, permanent. Pericai^pium, a hard berry, fleshy, - 
rude, narrowed at the neck. Cells, from ten to fifteen. 
Trunk of the root horizontal, fleshy, white, sending" out many 
fibres from the under surface ; petioles long-, rising- beyond the surface 
of the water, scabrous with acute tubercles ; leaves larg-e, one or two 
feet in diameter, exactly peltate in the centre, orbicular entire, g-la- 
brous, under surface palest, marg-ins somewhat waved ; peduncles, 
long-er than the petioles, erect, and scabrous ; Jiowers largfe, emulating* 
Pceonia and Papaver, white and red ; fruit resembling" an instrament 
once used in play by the French, by the very antique name Lotos, 
(D. C.) It was known in early history, and was said to be a native 
of India, but is found in g-reat abundance in all parts of China. 
This plant was well known to the Greeks, and is said by Herodo- 
tus, Theophrastus, and others, to be a native of Egypt, but no modern 
traveler has observed it growing" in that country. There can, how- 
ever, be no doubt of its having actually existed there, either naturally 
or cultivated, since the terms in which it is described by those au- 
thors are too clear and decisive to be mistaken, and their accounts are 
confirmed by ancient Egyptian sculptures and mosaics, which are still 
preserved, and testify that from the earliest times, it as weU as the 
Vol. IV. — 48. 
