EEL-GRASS 



staminate flowers, the long flower-stem contracts spirally, 

 carrying the seed-vessel down to the water floor. 



Fruit. — Of united carpels; elongated, cylindrical, rip- 

 ening under water. 



Of all plants that dwell by the water or beneath 

 it Eel-Grass may claim to have achieved one of the 

 most original strokes of 

 nature in the mating 

 of its blossoms. It is 

 the law of the floral 

 world that the pollen 

 seeks the stigma; it 

 may journey on the 

 body of an insect, it 

 may ride on the wings 

 of the wind, gravity 

 may carry it, but Eel- 

 Grass snaps the stami- 

 nate flower from its 

 stem and sends it afloat 

 upon the surface of the 

 water to seek its mate. 



" The pistillate flow- 

 er is borne on a very 

 long stalk which rises 

 through the water 

 corkscrew fashion in a 

 beautiful and symmet- 

 rical spiral. 



"The stamen-bearing flowers grow crowded together 

 on a cone-shaped head borne on a very short stalk 

 and develop under water close to the bottom of the 

 lake or pond. 



II 



Eel-Grass Submerged. Vallisneria spiralis 



