Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 59. (Budapest 1967)
Radics, F.: A revision of the Nymphaea material in Hungarian Natural History Museum
as a habitat of not Nymphaea neglecta HAUSLEUTNER but Gastalia alba var. venusta SIMK. (Nymphaea venusta HENTZE) (I.e., p. 130). SIMONKAI described the same waterlily in both of his works, but it was a different part of the plant, except for the ovary and the flower, which he respectively discussed. Of the descriptions of the ovary and the flower it is only that of the flower which is in essentials the same : "palm-sized", that is, "floribus magnis speciosis", whereas the characterization of the ovary is different: "pericarp glabrous under stigmatic disk", that is, "pericarpio eicatricibus staminorum alte obsito" (I.e., p. 150 and 130, respectively). As far as the ovary is concerned, one has to consider that our author had distinguished this waterlily, by its "pericarp glabrous under stigmatic disk", as a distinct species in the first case not only from alba and biradiata but also from N. Candida PRESL, whose ovary is — as is well-known — glabrous to a far greater extent downward. In the other case, the reference; of an ovary highly covered with stamens among the atóa-type Nymphaea varieties would seem to be redundant if it SIMONKAI intention to separate in again from N. Candida PRESL. In the identification of plants, it is the author who "has the first say". The above explanation would still seem to be futile if there were not, in the collection of the Botanical Department, three Nymphaea plants collected in the same locality in 1889 by SIMONKAI himself, and also identified and personally labelled by this same author, as "Gastalia alba LINK. 1831 v. venusta M", or "Nymphaea venusta HENTZE". He also added, in the case of the latter one, "ex descriptione omnino stirps nostra!" (Incidentally, SIMONKAI-SIMKOVICS reported the occurrence of A R . alba L. from the same locality in a paper preceding his other ones!) (10). It is now quite evident that SIMONKAI reported the occurrence in the same locality of a single plant under three different identifications, even though before sending his second work to print (1893) he had, according to his own statement, definitely recognized also A T . venusta HENTZE in the same site. In any case, we are in a position to check SIMONKAI'S two different descriptions on the plants of his own collection, and to compare them also with the original descriptions of the relevant species. Since the first description is more detailed, we can list also the following characterizations in addition to those already given (flower, ovary) : leaves large, rounded, entire, coriaceous and dull; lobe and sinus sagittate and weakly arched; number of carpels 15 — 20. According to SIMONKAI, it is these and the above features, among them the "pericarp glabrous under stigmatic disk", which "distinguish our plant from the northern Nymphaea alba L. (ex parte) and the western 7Y. Candida PRESL and N . biradiata SOMMERATJER bearing 5 — 10 carpels (I.e., p. 15). The feat ures submit ted by SIMON KAI also characterize our three herbaria! specimens. In spite of this fact, SIMONKAI'S description fails to agree with either the complete diagnosis of A T . neglecta HAUSLEUTNER (11), or all of the morphological characteristics of Nymphaea (albat ) venusta HENTZE (12). The following we gZecia-features are wanting: a small number of carpels (8 — 10); the slender axile process ("nectarium") ; the oval receptacle (in SIMONKAI'S words "widely sphaerical, almost reniform in transsection"); the pubescence of the underside of the leaves, the petiole, and the peduncle (one of the herbarial specimens bears an algal crust; Oedogonium sp.?); the fruit is half as small as that of alba. These features are absent also from our herbarial specimens. On the other hand, they agree with the following characterictics according to HAUSLEUTNER: the orangeyellow stigmatic disk tends to light yellow; it is pulverulent; the lower pair of primary (lobal) veins are convergent; the apex of the lobes are more or less pointed. And if SIMONKAI'S descriptions and the herbarial plants are together compared to HENTZE'S original diagnosis of A T . (alba ?) venusta, the result is as follows : Agreeing features : the sepals are reddish brown on the outside and below ; the petals are reddish also on their undersides ; the stamens are abundant, the flower is regular and showy; the stigmatic disk is flatly infundibuliform (it is well visible on one of the conserved plants that it is only the short tip of the funnel which penetrates into the ovary) ; the rays of the stigma are deeply furrowed; the inclinate part of the carpellary styles is wider than usual; the mature fruit is orange-shaped. Disagreeing features: the underside of the leaves is not "very strongly red" but a paler greenish; the laminar lobes are not overlapping; the ovary is not covered with stamens up to the summit.
