BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
45 
The character of grandeur so peculiar to the productions 
of a tropical sun and a humid climate is highly developed in 
the object of the above description. The Holy Cyamus or 
Pythagorean Bean is said to have been derived from a plant 
closely related to the Nymphaeaceae, (Nelumbium speciosum,) 
and not only that it is highly valued in India and China, and 
cultivated in large ornamental pots in the gardens and houses 
of the Mandarins, but it has been held in such high estima- 
tion that at last it was considered sacred. The description 
and illustrations which have been transmitted to us of this 
noble plant, have raised a desire in many a botanist, to see it 
in its native country. In my rambles through the West 
Indian Archipelago, I had frequently met the white Water 
Lily ; but the remark of an eminent botanist, that these 
floating plants were entirely unknown on the continent of 
South America, did not make me expect to find a repre- 
sentative of that tribe, which, for the superior grandeur of 
its leaves, the beauty of its flowers, and its fragrance, may be 
classed amongst the grandest productions of the vegetable 
world. It was on the 1st of January this year, while con- 
tending with the difficulties nature opposed in different forms 
to our progress up the river Berbice, (in British Guiana) 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, shortly afterwards we were oppo- 
site the object which had raised my curiosity. A vegetable 
wonder ! all calamities were forgotten, I felt as a botanist, and 
felt myself rewarded. A gigantic leaf, from five to six feet 
in diameter ; salver shaped, with a broad rim of light green 
above, and a vivid crimson below, resting upon the water. 
Quite in character with the wonderful leaf, was the luxuriant 
flower, consisting of many hundred petals, passing in alter- 
nate tints from pure white to rose and pink. The smooth 
water was covered with them, and I rowed from one to the 
other, and observed always something new to admire. The 
leaf on its surface is of a bright green, in form almost orbi- 
culate, with this exception, opposite its axis, where it is 
slightly bent in. Its diameter measured from five to six feet; 
around the whole margin extended a rim about three to five 
inches high, on the inside light green, like the surface of the 
leaf, on the outside, like the leafs lower part, of a bright 
