CCXXI.— ' THE WATER VILLARSIA. 
Nymphoides peltatum Britten and Rendle. 
S TRANGE indeed are the chances of botanical nomenclature. One of the 
commonest of plants, such as the Bluebell, may be bandied about from genus 
to genus so that the botanist becomes hopelessly beset with doubt as to the name 
the plant should bear according to the rules ; or another species, possibly uncommon, 
may have, like the Buckbean, received both its scientific names from Linnaeus under 
circumstances which have never caused a moment’s doubt in the minds of modern 
workers. So too with popular names, many comparatively insignificant plants have 
long been popularly known, perhaps as weeds or for some rustic use to which they 
are put, and have various familiar names in different parts of the country; while, on 
the other hand, a plant of rare and conspicuous beauty may never have received a 
genuine popular name, as opposed to the mere “ book-names ” given by botanists, 
which may, or may not, catch the popular taste and so pass gradually into the category 
of truly popular names. A plant of this last class is the subject of this Plate. 
Flourishing in sluggish or stagnant waters, not too deep to allow it to float on 
the surface while rooted in the mud at the bottom, it is not very uncommon in the 
south-east of England from the Cambridgeshire fens to Sussex, and is especially 
abundant in the Thames below Oxford or more particularly between Windsor and 
Hampton. It was first recorded in 1570, was formerly more widely distributed 
than at present, and is so pretty that it has frequently been introduced into private 
pieces of water. And yet it cannot be said to have any truly popular name, whilst 
its Latin denomination is also beset with such considerable doubt that it may have 
to bear a name only coined in its entirety in 1907. The general habit and texture 
of the plant and its round, floating, heart-shaped leaves naturally suggested to the 
early systematists that it should be put among Water-lilies. Pena and Lobel, in 
their “Adversaria” of 1570, call it Nympfuea lutea minor Septentrionalium, i.e. the 
lesser yellow Water-lily of the North, and give as its locality : — 
“ Juxta amcenissima Tamesis fluenta in udis scrobibus et lacustris pratensibus 
u Near the most pleasant waters of the Thames, in moist ditches and meadow pools." 
Noticing the fringed petals which suggested to Linnaeus the plant’s undoubtedly 
close affinity to the Buckbean, the Bauhins both speak of it as Nymphaa lutea minor 
flore fimbriato , the lesser yellow Water-lily with a fringed flower. Tournefort, 
however, recognising the floral characters which separate it so widely from the 
Water-lilies, proposed for the plant the name Nymphoides , meaning, no doubt, as 
Sir J. E. Smith points out, to compare it, not to a nymph, but to a Nymphaa. At 
the same time, under our present rules, we cannot alter this, as Smith did, to 
nympheeoides , and under no circumstances could we follow him in so altering it even 
when professing to quote Linnaeus, Ventenat, and Wiggers, all of whom wrote it 
nymphoides. Linn£ in his “ Species Plantarum ” (1753) united the plant in the same 
