2. The seed-bud and pointal. The magnificent species of Amaryllis here represented is a native of Sierra Leona; and was introduced from thence to this country, by Professor Afzelius, several years ago; but has not yet been described by any author whose works have reached us: although it will unquestionably be inserted in the Flora of that part of Africa, which the abovementioned learned Botanist is said to be preparing for publication. Although a very tender hot-house species, it flowers freely in the tan-bed, in rich earth; but its elegant flowers, like those of Amaryllis ornata, which it also resembles in foliage, are of very short duration, and do not individually last in full beauty longer than a day; unless they are taken out of the hot-house as soon as expanded, and placed in some cool apartment; which indeed they well deserve. Our figure was taken from plants in very great perfection, at J. Vere’s, esq. Kensington Gore, in the month of July. [Illustration] PLATE CCCXCI. NYMPHÆA LOTUS. _The Ægyptian Lotus._ CLASS XIII. ORDER I. _POLYANDRIA MONOGYNIA._ Many Chives. One Pointal. ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. COROLLA polypetala. Calyx 4-s. 5-phyllus. Bacca multilocularis, loculis polyspermis. BLOSSOM many-petaled. Empalement 4-or 5-leaved. Berry many-celled, with many seeds in each cell. SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &C. NYMPHÆA, foliis cordatis dentatis glaberrimis lobis approximatis, calyce tetraphyllo. _Willd. Sp. Pl. 2. 1153._ NYMPHÆA, with heart-shaped dentated very smooth leaves, with the lobes approximated, and a four-leaved empalement. REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 1. The seed-bud and pointal. 2. A chive. 3. A transverse section of the seed-bud. 4. A capsule. There can be no doubt, but that the plant here figured is the true “Nymphæa Lotus” of Linnæus, and that it is the plant mentioned by Pliny in Nat. Hist. lib. 13. cap. 17. and lib. 22. cap. 21. He there makes mention of a plant which is found at the ebbing of the Nile, the fruit of which resembles a poppy, and the seed of the size of millet: this exactly answers to the “Nymphæa” before us, and does not at all apply to the “Nelumbium,” the kernels of which are of the size of nuts or thereabouts: he also remarks that the heads are dried by the natives, and that the seed is beat and broken and made into bread.--Herodotus also mentions that the Egyptians baked the seed into bread, and ate of the roots, or rather tubercles, which resembled an apple and had an agreeable flavour. Vide Euterpe 92--Melpomene 177. Sonnini, in his Voyages, mentions the Lotus as being most abundant in Egypt, and having _white flowers_; and I apprehend the red one to be nothing but a variety of this.