Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/524

 WATER LILY other blue-flowered species, or varieties, as some regard them, and some with red flowers, such as N. rwftra, from the East Indies. The largest of our water lilies is one of the two species of nelumbium, so colled from nelumbo, Nelumbo (Nclumblum lutcum). the Ceylonese name of the Asiatic species. Ours, N. luteum, called sacred bean, water chinquapin, and sometimes nelumbo, is found in the western and southern waters, and in a few isolated localities in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and western New York, to which it is supposed to have been intro- duced by the aborigines ; the rootstocks are tuberous; the leaves stand high out of water; the blade, attached to the stalk by the centre and strongly ribbed, is often 2 ft. across, with a deep cup-like depression in the centre; the flowers, also emersed, are 5 to 6 in. across, the numerous sepals and petals alike, the many stamens slender, and the 12 to 40 ovaries im- bedded in a disk or torus, which becomes 4 to 6 in. across, into the cavities in which the acorn-like nuts are set like plums in a pud- ding. This was an important plant to the aborigines, as the tubers, resembling in ap- pearance those of the sweet potato, with a proper amount of boiling become quite farina- ceous, and, according to Nuttall, are as agree- able and wholesome as the potato ; the seeds are also edible. The other species, N. tpedo- aum, is regarded as the sacred lotus of the ancient Egyptians; it grows throughout the East, but is no longer found in the Nile, though many sculptured representations of it remain ; it is nearly like N. luteum, but has pink or rose-colored flowers and smaller sta- mens ; the tubers and seeds are used as food in China and elsewhere, and the fibres of the leaf stalks as lamp wicks. The grandest of all water lilies, from the tributaries of the Ama- zon, bears the name Victoria regia. Though it was discovered as early as 1801, and men- tioned by subsequent travellers, it was not named till 1838, when Lindley described it and dedicated it to his sovereign ; but it was not till about 1850 that it was introduced into cultivation through the efforts of the traveller Spruce. In cultivation the Victoria is an an- nual, with a fleshy rootstock, from which are produced leaves from 6 to 12 ft. in diameter ; these are fixed to the petiole by the centre, and have the margin turned up as a border 2 or 3 in. high, giving the leaf the appearance of a huge tray; their upper surface is of a rich green color, and studded with small prom- inences ; the lower surface, purple or violet, is traversed by ridge-like veins, radiating from the centre, and connected by cross veins, which divide the whole into compartments ; the veins and the leaf stalks are covered with spines or prickles. These enormous leaves, especially adapted by their structure to float, are capable of sustaining the weight of a large water fowl, and by placing a board upon them to distrib- ute the weight, they will hold up a child 10 years old. The flower is of two days' dura- tion. The first day it opens about 6 o'clock P. M.. and remains open until about the same hour the next morning; in this stage it is cup-shaped, 12 to 16 in. across, with numerous pure white petals, and emits a delightful fra- grance. The second evening the flower opens again, but it presents an entirely different ap- pearance ; the petals are now of a rosy pink color, and retiexed, or bent downward from the centre, to form a handsome coronet, but now without odor; the flower closes toward morning, and during the day it sinks beneath tin- surface to ripen the seeds. In cultivation the plant requires a tank 20 to 30 ft. across and 3 or 4 ft. deep, with a special arrange- ment of pipes for heating the water to 80 or 85. When it was first introduced, several private establishments had a Victoria house; but as the cultivation is difficult and expensive, Victoria Water Lily (Victoria repia). the plant is now only seen in a few public gardens. In England Sir William Hooker, and in this country Mr. J. F. L. Allen of Salem, Mass., have published splendid monographs, in which the Victoria is shown in various