THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 473 



mucus. At this last moment the Utricularia falls again to 

 the depths of the marsh, where the spouses expire in the 

 act of ripening their fruits. 



A more robust plant, the Aldrovanda, which grows in the 

 lakes of Italy, attains the same end, but by a method less 



204. Branch of the Utricularia laden with its Hydrostatic Vesicular Leaves. 



ingenious, and marked, so to speak, by a certain degree of 

 coarseness. It lives at the bottom of the water, but when 

 the hour of fecundation has struck, its large stem breaks 

 short off close to the root, and all at once it rises to float on 

 the surface of the waves. 



Thus by different ways does Nature arrive at the same 

 ends. 



