The Lake covers a little less than four acres. By preventing the weeds in it from reaching the surface, and the 
weeds on its banks from spreading inwards, that is to say by keeping the water open, its fish are enabled to destroy 
any mosquito larvae that happen to hatch out from eggs deposited in it. The submerged weeds are chiefly Chara 
gymnopitySf Blyxa malayana and Enhydrias angustipetala. 
The Lake is planted with Water Lilies. The white and the rose lilies are Nymphcea Lotus, chiefly in its variety 
pubescens ; the blue is Nymphaea capensis- — the type as well as its variety zanzibarensis ; and the lemon-yellow is 
Nymphasa mexicana. The white surely deserves the appellation of the ** Lady Virtue '' given in Chinese classics. 
TV. Lotus was a temple flower with the ancient Egyptians, and is still so among the Burmese buddhists. 
These three species of Nymphaea belong to as many different sections of the genus, and the sections will not 
inter-cross. At the same time hybrids made within the sections tend to be sterile, and, therefore, when planted in 
the Lake as they have often been, they die out before the very fertile TV. Lotus. TV. Lotus opens its flowers about night- 
fall, closes them during the following morning, to open again once more for another night. TV. capensis and TV. mexicana 
are day-flowering, having their flowers open from the forenoon until the late afternoon. 
Victoria regia is also in the Lake. It is the largest of all the water-lilies, and its flowers may exceed 12 inches in 
diameter. Their beauty is great ; so that the traveller Bonpland, in excitement, all but threw himself into the 
Ama2;on for them at first sight, and the botanist Haencke went on his knees to them. The annual floods of that great 
river bring down rich silt ; and so nourished this plant thrives in its back waters. The wide leaves have a free-board 
edge and possess defending prickles below. 
On the islet in the Lake are seen conspicuously a Siamese Screw-Pine, Pandanus kaida and the Malayan Palm, 
Oncosperma tigillaria, with tree-ferns and Hedychium. 
The slopes above the Lake carry economic trees, several of which were planted soon after the foundation of the 
Gardens, in 1859. A photograph taken in 1878 shows these slopes with abundant coconuts, in addition to what 
is present now. On the bank over the water stand two mango trees, Mangifera indica. On the other side of the road 
are trees of the rambai, Baccaurea Motleyana, the durian, Durio zibethinus and the mangosteen, Garcinia Mangostana. 
With the idea of increasing the economic interest of this part of the Gardens, the sides of the road as it ascends from the 
Lake-side have been planted with other useful plants. The palm with large leaves held edgewise to the light is 
Attalea cohune, whose oily seeds serve, upon the upper Amazon, to make the greasy smoke with which fine hard Para 
rubber is cured. A triangle of trees is passed on the left and immediately beyond stands a tree of Melaleuca Leucaden- 
dron, the leaves of which yield cajeput oil. The flaky bark is the usual material from which, with the aid of dammar, 
the Malays make torches. Opposite is a young tree of Pistacia formosana, a timber tree of the island which gives it its 
name ; facing it is the Levantine Pistada Lentiscus, which in its variety mutica yields Chian turpentine. 
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