Volume 8 — PLATE DIII.

NYMPHÆA RUBRA.

Red-flowered Nymphæa.

CLASS XIII. ORDER I.

POLYANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Many Chives. One Pointal.

ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.

Corolla polypetala. Calyx 4-seu 5-phyllus. Bacca multilocularis, loculis polyspermis.

Blossom many-petalled. Empalement 4-or 5-leaved. Berry many-celled, with many seeds in each cell.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Nymphæa foliis sub-orbiculatis, irregulariter dentatis, glaberrimis: lobis approximatis: corollis rubris: radice battatis assimilatâ, et multiplicante in modum istius vegetabilis.

Nymphæa rubra. Roxb. MSS.

Nymphæa with nearly round leaves irregularly toothed, and very smooth, with the lobes approximating: blossom red: root resembling that of a potatoe, and increasing like that vegetable.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

This fine red aquatic is so nearly allied to the Nymphæa Lotus, that many consider it as only a variety; but it certainly is specifically distinct in the colour of the flowers, as the term variety can only be applicable to those lighter or darker shades of colour that may occasionally vary by culture or climate. This Nymphæa is no doubt, like the N. Lotus, considered as a sacred plant; but probably that species may be more highly estimated, from the emblematical purity of its fine white petals. As four or five more figures will include every species of this fine section of aquatics at present known, we shall not omit any of them, and intend, in the course of the ensuing summer, to give a figure of that most magnificent of all the species the N. Nelumbo.

Our figure was made from a plant in the collection of J. Vere, esq. raised in a tub of water placed in a common hot-bed; where, notwithstanding its circumscribed situation, it flowered for the time in this kingdom, under the care of Mr. Anderson the botanic gardener, who informs me that this species is capable of great increase from the root, whilst the N. Lotus affords only one solitary plant.