tion of this remarkable plant in the London Botanical Journal for January, 1856. In the description there given, after noticing the curious fork-like inflorescence, it is stated that the leaf “seems like a living fibrous skeleton rather than a perfect leaf. The longitudinal fibres, or nerves, surrounded by a portion of parenchyma, extend in curved lines along its entire length, and are united by thread-like nerves or nervelets, crossing them at right angles, from side to side, at short distances from each other. The colour is bright green, and the whole leaf looks as if composed of fine tendrils, wrought after a most regular pattern, so as to resemble a piece of bright green lace or open needle-work. Each leaf rises from the crown on the root like a short, delicate, pale-green or yellow fibre, gradually unfolding its feathery sides, and increasing in size as it spreads beneath the water. It is scarcely possible to imagine any object of the kind more curious and attractive than a full-grown plant, with its dark green leaves forming the limit of a circle two or three feet in diameter, and exhibiting in the transparent water within that circle leaves in every state of development, as regards brightness, colour, and variation of size. Nor is it less curious to notice that these slender and fragile structures, apparently not more substantial than gossamer, and flexile as a feather, still possess a tenacity and wiriness which allows the delicate leaf to be raised by the hand to the surface of the water without injury.” Sir William J. Hooker remarks, in the course of his account of the plant, “We shall be surprised if all who are interested in horticulture do not possess themselves of so curious and beautiful an object. Being entirely aquatic, the leaves even submerged, we cannot doubt but it may be cultivated in glass aquaria, and even in a glass jar placed in the drawing-room, as is done with the Vallisneria spiralis, &c.”
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A second species, with pink-coloured flowers, described by Sir W. J. Hooker as Ouvirandra Bernieriana, has since been introduced by Mr. Ellis, who has succeeded in raising young plants of the Ouvirandra fenestralis from seed.
Ouvirandra, the native name of the plant, has been adopted by botanists to designate the genus to which it belongs. In the language of the people of Madagascar, the name signifies yam of the water—ouvi being the name for yam, and rano (to which, for the sake of sound, the d is added,) signifying water. It is a useful as well as a curious plant, and is called ouvi because the white fleshy root, though small as compared with the yam, resembles it in structure, and is sometimes used by the natives of the country as an article of food.
The plant grows on the lower and hottest portions of the country in the level parts of streams from the mountains, that seem to wash down the soil by which it is nourished. It is found at a depth of from a foot to three feet or more, and it is a singular fact that, however shallow the water may be, the leaves are always beneath the surface,