approaches, though not so ingeniously as the
spiral threads of the European Vallisneria, which uncoil to let the
flowers rise to the surface, and then cautiously retract, that the
seeds may ripen on the very bottom of the lake. The leaves show
beneath the magnifier beautiful adaptations of structure. They are
not, like those of land-plants, constructed with deep veins to receive
the rain and conduct it to the stem, but are smooth and glossy, and of
even surface. The leaves of land-vegetation have also thousands of
little breathing-pores, principally on the under side: the apple-leaf,
for instance, has twenty-four thousand to a square inch. But here they
are fewer; they are wholly on the upper side, and, whereas in other
cases they open or shut according to the moisture of the atmosphere,
here the greedy leaves, secure of moisture, scarcely deign to close
them. Nevertheless, even these give some recognition of hygrometric
necessities, and, though living on the water, and not merely
christened with dewdrops like other leaves, but baptized by immersion
all the time, they are yet known to suffer in drought and to take
pleasure in the rain.

We have spoken of the various kindred of the water-lily; but we must
not leave our fragrant subject without due mention of its most
magnificent, most lovely relative, at first claimed even as its twin
sister, and classed as a Nymphaea. We once lived near neighbor to a
Victoria Regia. Nothing, in the world of vegetable existence, has such
a human interest. The charm is not in the mere size of the plant,
which disappoints everybody, as Niagara does, when tried by that sole
standard. The leaves of the Victoria, indeed, attain a diameter of six
feet; the largest flowers, of twenty-three inches,--less than four
times the size of the largest of our water-lilies. But it is not the
mere looks of the Victoria, it is its life which fascinates. It is not
a thing merely of dimensions, nor merely of beauty, but a creature of
vitality and motion. Those vast leaves expand and change almost
visibly. They have been known to grow half an inch an hour, eight
inches a day. Rising one day from the water, a mere clenched mass of
yellow prickles, a leaf is transformed the next day to a crimson
salver, gorgeously tinted on its upturned rim. Then it spreads into a
raft of green, armed with long thorns, and supported by a frame-work
of ribs and cross-pieces, an inch thick, and so substantial, that the
Brazil In