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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
ciborium. They are nearly of equal height, having stems 
about ten feet long; but the paper-reed has a smooth stem, 
with foliage growing from the top, whereas the bean has leaves 
and flowers springing from separate stems, and bears a fruit 
like our bean, but differing in size and taste. The plantations 
of beans are pleasant to the sight, and delightful to those who 
wish to feast on them. The way of feasting is to go in boats 
with cabins into the thick plantations of them, where a shade 
is afforded by the leaves, which are very large, so as to be used 
for cups and bowls : they are adapted to this use by their con- 
cavity. The shops at Alexandria are full of them, where they 
are used for vessels. The sale of them constitutes one part of 
the profit of a farm.” 
Comparing all these very characteristic features with what is 
known of Nelumbium speciosum , there is no room for doubt 
that this is the plant which was known to the ancients as the 
Kyamos or Egyptian bean, the Tamara of modern India. This 
is described as an aquatic plant, with orbicular leaves at- 
tached at the centre, smooth ; under-surface pale ; margins 
somewhat waved; peduncles longer than the petioles, and 
erect; root-stock horizontal, fleshy, sending out many fibres 
from the under-surface ; petioles long, rising above the surface 
of the water, rough with acute tubercles ; corolla polypetalous ; 
flowers large, white or rose-coloured ; nuts loose in the 
hollows of the torus or receptacle. (PI. LXXIV., fig. 3.) 
The flowers-stems and petioles of the leaves are pierced 
throughout their length with numerous canals or air-ducts, so 
that sections cut from them are full of large holes. These 
sections, about one-eighth of an inch in thickness when dried, 
are sold in the bazaars of India, where they are employed 
medicinally. (PI. LXXIV., fig. 4.) 
The leaves and flower-stalks abound in spiral tubes, which 
are extracted with great care by gently breaking the stems and 
drawing apart the ends ; with these filaments are prepared those 
wicks which are burnt by the Hindoos in the lamps placed 
before the shrines of their gods. In India, as well as in China 
and Ceylon, the flowers are held to be especially sacred. The 
roots and seeds are still eaten in India, as they were in ancient 
Egypt ; and Dr. Porter Smith states that the common arrow- 
root of China is prepared from this plant. (PI. LXXIV., fig. 
6.) The peculiar receptacle, and the way in which the seeds 
are immersed in it, are so characteristic, that it needs scarcely 
any other evidence to establish the identity of the Nelumbium 
with the Kyamos. 
The Chinese distinguish four kinds of water-lily — the yellow, 
the white, the red, and the pink ; the three latter sometimes 
with single flowers, sometimes with double. Of the Nelumbium 
