BOTANICAL INDEX. 
IS 
Fig. 164. Opening Bud and Young Leaves. — After Allen. 
Victoria , as the name for his new genus, at the same time, giving it the new specific 
name of Regia , — not Regina, as many authors would have it. We might also add 
with propriety, that there is only one more recognized species of Victoria, viz: V. 
Fitzroyana, ( Ni/mphcea yigantea,) of Australia. The most elaborate and complete 
work on the Victoria, is said to be Sir W. J. Hooker’s Monograph, much of the mate- 
rial being prepared by Sir Joseph Paxton, from observation of the plant given the 
Duke of Devonshire by Sir W. J. Hooker, and grown at his seat, Chatsworth, but as 
we failed to precure a copy, we had not the benefit of its pages. 
We have taken the liberty to prepare a set of illustrations, mainly from Mr. 
Allen’s Victoria Regia, and will now briefly attempt a description of the plant. By 
studying the root in cultivation, some botanists decide it to be only an annual, or, at 
least, to grow up from the seed, and, after a brief period of growth, to mature and 
die. Dr. Poppig was very certain this was the case, and ranged it under the Eury- 
ale: and many other more recent writers have, to a large extent, adopted his views. 
It is now, however, decided to be a perennial, which, with a few other distinctive 
characters, lias separated it from all the old established genera, and has been made 
the type of a new genus. The root is a large, spindle-shaped, fleshy root-stock, 
marked with the scars of former leaves, and at the base of each leaf is a bundle 
of many fibrous adventitious rootlets, which often protrude above the surface of 
the soil ; these, when young, are of a yellowish or orange hue. The tuber, or rhizo- 
tna, is of a deep red color, and rapidly decays upon the maturity and decline of the 
plant. 
The leaf-stocks are long, cylindrical, and traversed their entire length by nu- 
merous air canals, the larger ones arranged with much regularity. The stock is of- 
ten one inch in diameter, and covered on the outside by stout, sharp, elastic, conical 
prickles, about three-quarters of an inch in length, which contain spiral vessels and 
a small cavity at the top. The flower-stock has a similar outward appearance to the 
leaf and stock, but is stouter and the air-canals are arranged in a different manner. 
They usually grow in four to six feet of water, and usually have only four or five 
leaves floating on the surface of the water. 
Pig. 1(51 shows a young plant with five leaves, as grown in Mr. Allen’s tank, the 
first of which appears as a fine blade of grass. The second leaf had a true arrow- 
shape, like all so-called Water Lilies in some of their stages of existence. The third 
one still retains the arrow-shape, or, perhaps, more like the Calla ( Richardia ) leaf. 
Each leaf and stem had increased in size, until the fourth measured, at maturity, 
four inches in length and nearly two inches in width. The fifth leaf, which ap- 
peared twenty-eight days from the date of germination, was still an indefinite arrow- 
shaped one, and measured four and three-fourth inches in length by two and three- 
fourth inches in width. This completed the first cycle of five leaves, and was the 
subject from which the figure was made. 
Fig. 162 shows first a small leaf, (the sixth,) nearly round, and measuring five 
and one-fourth by four inches, while the next in size and age is directly opposite. 
Each leaf in the series shows the different stages of growth, until the largest or tenth 
leaf, which is nearly round, completes the second cycle of growth. The peculiar 
character of the leaf, — the salver-shaped edge, was not developed until the twenty- 
