Lenitic Plants 319 



pool and those growing on a wave- washed shore. The 

 former appear as if robed in filmy mantles of green, full- 

 fledged with leaves, and luxuriant. The latter appear 

 as if stripped for action, unbranched, slender and bare. 

 At one extreme are the finely-branched free-floating 

 bladderworts (see fig. 173 on p. 285) at the other are 

 such firmly rooted, slender, naked, pliant-topped forms 

 as the lake bulrush (figure 188) and eel-grass. These 

 latter anchor their bodies firmly and closely to the soil, 

 and send up into the moving waters overhead only soft 

 and pliant vegetative parts, that offer the lea^t possible 

 resistance to the movement of the water, and that, if 

 broken, are easily replaced. The long cylindric shoots 

 of the bulrush have their vessels lodged in the axis and 

 surrounded with a remarkable padding of air cushions. 

 They are not easily injured. The flat ribbon-like 

 leaves of eel-grass are marvels of adjustability to waves. 



Between these tw^o extremes are all gradations of 

 form and of fitness. Of the pool-inhabiting type are 

 the water crow-foot, the water milfoil, the water horn- 

 wort; of the opposite type are the long-leaved pond- 

 weeds and the pipeworts. Intermediate are the broader- 

 leaved pondweeds and Philotria. 



These sometimes are found in running streams, but 

 they usually grow in the beds in dense mutually sup- 

 porting masses that deflect the current. If one place a 

 current meter among their tops he will find little move- 

 ment of the water there. 



There is another place of security from waves, for 

 such plants as can endure the conditions there. It is 

 on the lake's bed, below the level of surface disturbance. 

 The stoneworts (see fig. 55 on p. 137) are branched and 

 brittle forms, very ill adapted to wave exposure, and 

 most of them live in pools, but a few have found this 

 place of security beneath the waves. There are 

 extensive beds of Chara on the bottom of our great 



