94 LIMNANTHEMUM LACUNOSUM. FLOATING HEART. 



earliest known species, L. nymphcEoidcs, a European plant, grows 

 under water, where the leaves can float on the surface, and does 

 not seem to occur in situations strictly conforming to-those 

 alluded to. It is properly an aquatic, and not a marsh plant, as 

 the name would imply, and as Gmelin (author of the " Flora of 

 Siberia") seems to have supposed. Our species was named 

 L. lacunostim, from the Latin laciis, a lake, by Grisebach, the 

 author of a Flora of the West Indies, from its actual place of 

 growth, and it might be supposed as a corrective of its generic 

 name. But there are in other countries more species that grow 

 in lakes, so we see there is nothing distinctive in either name ; 

 and those therefore who might infer it to be so, would be led 

 into serious error. 



In old works our plant has to be sought for under the name 

 of Mcnyanthes, or, as it is spelled by Pliny, Minianthcs. Some 

 writers contend that this name is derived from vicns, a month, in 

 allusion to its old reputation in certain diseases, or, as Dr. Gray 

 says, from the fact that the flowers last about a month, while 

 those who adopt the Plinian orthography maintain that it comes 

 from the miniate or red-lead color of the flowers. At a later 

 period, it will be found among Villarsia, so named from a 

 French botanist, Villar or Villars. Nuttall has it under Vil- 

 larsia, and Michaux and Muhlenberg under Mcnyanthcs ; but 

 all our modern botanists are united on Limnaiithmtum. It 

 differs from Menyanthes particularly in the shape of the corolla, 

 which, when expanded, is wheel-shaped, as seen in our Fig. 4, 

 while that of Menyanthes is formed like a funnel. 



The flowers proceeding from the petiole or leaf-stalk will, of 

 course, attract attention, and their position will afford a good 

 lesson in vegetable morphology, as showing the intimate rela- 

 tionship between leaves and the axis. It will be remembered 

 by the student that a flower does not consist simply of modified 

 leaves, but of the modified stem and leaves, — a whole branch, 

 and not merely the leaves of a loranch. Now, it is a well-known 

 axiom that the lesser cannot be greater than its whole. It 



