THE BUTTERWORT FAMILY. 277 



No plant of the meadows is more conspicuous ; for though the flowers are 

 minute, tlie large white anthers make it visible from a long distance. The lower- 

 most blossoms open first, and the upper ones gradually afterwards, surrounding 

 the spike with a zone of white, which mounts by degrees from the bottom to the 

 top. It is sometimes found with three or four heads clustered together. 



LXXXIL— THE BUTTERWORT FAMILY. Lmtibularidce(B. 



A family of about one hundred and seventy very pretty little 

 herbaceous plants, living either on wet moors in mountainous regions, 

 or in marshes and ponds, and dispersed all over the world. Leaves, 

 in the land species, simple and radical ; in the aquatic kinds, finely 

 divided, so as to resemble roots, and thickly hung with minute air- 

 bladders. Flowers, in the land species, solitary ; in the aquatic 

 species, racemose, and always very irregular. Corolla two-lipped, 

 projecting at the base into a spur. Stamens usually two ; stigma two- 

 lipped ; ovary single ; capsule one-celled, with many seeds attached 

 to a central placenta, in which respect these plants resemble the 

 PrimiQacea}, while the irregular and spurred flowers, and several 

 other points of structure, indicate an afl&nity with the Foxglove 

 Family. 



Seven species are described as British, though two are probably 

 fanciful. Three of the undoubted ones grow near Manchester. 



1. Leaves oval, one or two inches long, entire, radical, spreading, \ 

 the margins rolled inwards, light-green, somewhat succu- 

 lent, and covered with little crystalline points, which give 

 them a wet and clammy appearance. Flower-stalks radical, y 

 leafless, three to five inches high, bearing a solitary, hand- 

 some, blueish -purple, and drooping flower, not unUke a 

 purple violet, the palate covered with white hairs 



Common 

 butteewort. 



2. Plant floating in water, with long, fibrous, root-like branches > 

 and leaves, all submerged, and hung with little gi'een blad- 1 

 ders full of air. Flowers in a terminal raceme, on a leaf- 1 Common 

 less stem which rises eight or ten inches out of the water. | Bladderwort. 

 Corolla rich yellow, about half an inch long, the spur coni- 

 cal, and the lower lip broad and convex 



\\. Similar to the preceding, but smaller and more slender in all \ 



its parts, the floatin;^ portion often intricately branched. I Smaix 



Flowers pale-yellow, with the lower lip much flattened, and j Bladderwort. 

 the spur usually reduced to a short and broad protiiberance ' 



