
AQUATIC PLANTS OF FRESHWATER 

or Chilian Water-milfoil, Fig. 116. 
and emersed leaves are alike and 
grow in whorls of 4’s and §’s about 
a Creeping stem. Ihe minute 
white auxillary and pistillate flowers 
have 4 stamens and develop 4 car- 
pels. Small hairlike white bracts 
are borne at the base of the leaves 
and among the flowers. The finely 
pinnate, brilliantly green leaves and 
their graceful habit in growing 
above the water has made this a 
very desirable plant, but it is an 
indifferent oxygenator, as the sub- 
merged leaves soon slough off and 
the rapidly growing plant sends its 
green crown of leaves 4 to 6 inches 
above the surface of the water. 
The pectinate-pinnatifid submerged 

FIG. 116. Parrot’s feather, Myriophyllum proserpina- 
coides. Emersed leaves. Reduced one-fourth. 
SS = 7 
SS > 
Yl, 
FIG. 117. Mermaid-weed, Proserpinaca 
palustris. 

Reduced one-third. 
The emersed leaves fold together at 
sundown to again open after sunrise. 
It is a beautiful semi-aquatic plant, and 
is extensively grown in watertight hang- 
ing baskets or jars where the fine single 
stems hang over the sides in handsome 
festoons. 
In addition to the above described 
form there are two species of true 
Proserpinaca found in the United States, 
viz, P. palustris and P. pectinata, gener- 
ally distributed in the Southern States. 
Proserpinaca palustris (Linn.) or 
Common Mermaid-weed, Fig. 117, 1s 
not an indigenous plant but is now 
native to swamps from New Brunswick 
to Lake Huron and south to Florida, 
Iowa, Cuba and Central America. It 
is an aquatic herb with single stem and 
alternate dentate leaves about a weak 
stem. The perfect flowers are stigmatic 
above the middle with 3 or 4 styles, 
and the bony fruit has one seed in each 
1g! 
