Root perennial. Leaves orbicular and centrally peltate, from
twelve to eighteen or twenty inches in diameter, entire, deep duck-
green above, apple-green beneath, and conspicuously marked by radiating
nerves. Petioles from three to five feet in length, cylindrical,
muricate with short, black, rigid projections. Flowers very large, globose,
until fully expanded, when the petals separate, and the corolla
measures from six to eight inches in diameter. Petals ovate, pale
straw-yellow, streaked longitudinally with whitish nerves or lines.
The exterior petals often marked with a few irregular, reddish-brown
blotches. Calix consisting generally of five leaves resembling the
petals, excepting that they are of a less delicate texture and colour,
the exterior small and discoloured by reddish spots. Scape cylindrical,
of a yellowish-green colour, muricated in the same manner as
the petioles. Stigma orange-yellow, an inverted cone, the upper surface
showing the apices of the immature fruit, peeping from the
spongy germ. Stamens very numerous, surrounding and embracing
the germ, also orange-yellow. Anthers of the same colour, sub-acute,
becoming afterwards as the flower grows old, obtuse, by the inversion
of the apex, as in Fig. 6. Capsule very large, often four inches in
diameter, of a dull greenish colour, consisting of a spongy inverted
cone, having imbedded in it from seventeen to twenty ovate seeds, of
a yellow colour, varying in size, and crowned by the persistent style.
The figure represents them of the largest size, several being in each
capsule half as large. They are esculent' in the green state, and are
collected eagerly by boys who eat and sell them under the name of
water chinquapin. Inhabits ditches and pools of water with muddy
or boggy bottoms; flowering in July. Rare in the United States.
Very abundant about half a mile below Southwark of this city, in the
ditches of the meadows bordering the Delaware. In this place it
makes a very splendid appearance, and its flowers may be seen at a
great distance.
xvccfc,i, originally the Greek name of a plant, which does not appear
to be specifically different from our common cultivated bean, afterwards
extended by Theophrastus and other writers, to the plant here
figured, on account of a fancied resemblance in the seeds.
The following account of the Nelumbium Indicum, which does not
appear to be specifically distinct from our plant, is taken from Rees’
Cyclopaedia. It is a native of the East Indies, Cochinchina, China, £jc.
in many parts of which it is esteemed a sacred plant and makes a
conspicuous figure in their mythology as the symbol of fertility. It
was known to the Greeks, and is said by Herodotus, Theophrastus,
and others, to be a native of Egypt; but no modern traveller has observed
it in that country. It has no doubt existed there, as the terms in
which it is described, are too decisive to be mistaken, and their accounts
are confirmed by ancient Egyptian sculptures and mosaics,
which are still preserved, and testify that from the earliest times, it,
as well as the proper lotus, has obtained a religious reverence. It is
remarkable, that neither Herodotus nor Theophrastus, the most an