The flowers in the middle of May 1850 measured one foot one inch in diameter.  The rapidity of the growth of this plant is one of its most remarkable characteristics, its leaves often expanding eight inches in diameter daily, and Mr. John Fisk Allen, who has published in America an admirably illustrated work upon the subject, tells us that instances under his own observation have occurred of the leaves increasing at the rate of half an inch hourly.

Not only is there an extraordinary variety in the colours of the several specimens of this flower, but a singularly rapid succession of changes of hue in the same individual flower as it progresses from bud to blossom.

This vegetable wonder was introduced into North America in 1851.  It grows to a larger size there than in England.  Some of the leaves of the plant cultivated in North America measure seventy-two inches in diameter.

This plant has been proved to be perennial.  It grows best in from 4 to 6 feet of water.  Each plant generally sends but four or five leaves to the surface.

In addition to the other attractions of this noble Water Lily, is the exquisite character of its perfume, which strongly resembles that of a fresh pineapple just cut open.

The Victoria Regia in the Calcutta Botanic Garden has from some cause or other not flourished so well as it was expected to do.  The largest leaf is not more than four feet and three quarters in diameter.  But there can be little doubt that when the habits of the plant are better understood it will be brought to great perfection in this country.  I strongly recommend my native friends to decorate their tanks with this the most glorious of aquatic plants.

THE FLY-ORCHIS—­THE BEE-ORCHIS.

Of these strange freaks of nature many strange stories are told.  I cannot repeat them all.  I shall content myself with quoting the following passage from D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature:—­

“There is preserved in the British Museum, a black stone, on which nature has sketched a resemblance of the portrait of Chaucer.  Stones of this kind, possessing a sufficient degree of resemblance, are rare; but art appears not to have been used.  Even in plants, we find this sort of resemblance.  There is a species of the orchis found in the mountainous parts of Lincolnshire, Kent, &c.  Nature has formed a bee, apparently feeding on the breast of the flower, with so much exactness, that it is impossible at a very small distance to distinguish the imposition.  Hence the plant derives its name, and is called, the Bee-flower.  Langhorne elegantly notices its appearance.

    See on that floweret’s velvet breast,
      How close the busy vagrant lies? 
    His thin-wrought plume, his downy breast,
      Th’ ambrosial gold that swells his thighs. 
    Perhaps his fragrant load may bind
      His limbs;—­we’ll set the captive free—­
    I sought the living bee to find,
      And found the picture of a bee,’